Dear Ellen

July 15, 2009

Dear Ellen,
Why don’t humans have tails? Don't you think they would be handy or at the very least super cool?
Curious

Dear Curious,
Humans don’t have tails because our pants don’t have tail holes. In the early stages of fetal development, humans have a rather large tail. As they near delivery from the womb, the tail becomes less and less prominent. This is because we innately know that it is almost time to wear pants.
Having a tail would be unbelievably cool, but I’m not sure if it would be handy. Tails have no digits or opposable thumbs, and contain many involuntary muscles, rendering it a fairly useless and potentially embarrassing body part. Although the right kind of tail could allow you to hang upside down from a tree branch, which would be great. Still we are left with the pants problem. What would be handy is a 3rd arm. Or telepathy.
Ellen