• Question: why don't humans have tails anymore?

    Asked by Flo202 to Ellen, Elliot, Hazel, Rupesh, Thomas on 15 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Elliot Jokl

      Elliot Jokl answered on 15 Jun 2016:

      This is a great question!

      It is kind of similar to the reason snakes don’t have legs. We evolved away from having them. This happens because random mutations happen in our genes, and at some point in our evolution, the genes that were important for making a tail will have become so mutated that they stopped working. And since we didn’t really need tails any more, this wasn’t harmful and so didn’t make you less likely to survive.

    • Photo: Hazel Garvie-Cook

      Hazel Garvie-Cook answered on 15 Jun 2016:

      We stopped needing them! We can walk really well on just two legs, so we don’t need tails anymore.

    • Photo: Thomas Biggans

      Thomas Biggans answered on 16 Jun 2016:

      As we no longer needed tails to survive they slowly got phased out through evolution. Animals that still have tails use them for a particular task like balancing themselves or holding on to tree branches. We’ve developed another way to balance using canals in our ears and we don’t live in trees so make do with using our hands to hold on to things when we’re off the ground.

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