How Humans Lost Their Tails — HHMI BioInteractive Video

Did humans once have tails? We all still have a vestige of our ancestors’ tails in our coccyx, or tailbone. The fossil of Proconsul, the early ape, shows that the first primates without visible tails appeared nearly 20 million years ago.

This science classroom-ready educational video tracks human evolution from the first primates to the modern day, exploring when our human ancestors lost their tails.

[raglanheuser]

well that really didn't answer anything

[bpdubb]

I'm thinking the title should have been. "Me ice skating with my family" Cuz that's all i took from this video.

[plamenvelkov]

It would be cool if us humans could have tails😁👍

[IshanDeSilva]

I guess this video is more about WHEN humans lost the tail than HOW

[sakisgrig]

Actually didn't explain how, but when. So.. dislike!

[Until.the.nets.are.filled]

When it comes to the tail bone, here's the truth. The “tail bone” is the small triangular bone at the lower end of your back bone or vertebral column. Early anatomists thought it was shaped “like a cuckoo’s beak” they gave it the name coccyx (from the Latin for Cuckoo). They didn’t call it a tail because it doesn’t look like one.
It’s nickname of “tail bone” came from Darwin and his followers who believed it was the useless or vestigial remains of a tail, left over from monkey-like evolutionary ancestors. However, this bone is no more useless than any other bone in the body. So what does it do?
One of our editors found the answer the hard way when he tore the ligaments attached to his’ tail bone’ whilst doing sports training. He writes about the experience: “ I knew something was badly wrong when I could only walk by shuffling each leg forward using my upper body strength. If I was standing up, that’s where I preferred to stay. It was too painful to try and sit down. If I was sitting down, I didn’t want to get up – shifting position was exquisite agony.”
Medical research has shown that the muscles which help us sit or stand, all gain their ability to move us only because they are attached to our fully functional and necessary so called ‘tail bone’ which of course means that human beings do not actually have a useless or even vestigial “tail bone”! The coccyx is fully functional part of the system of bones, ligaments and muscles of the pelvis, that protects and supports the pelvic organs, and contributes to our upright stance and walking. It provides stable anchorage points for ligaments and muscles which is an essential function of all bones. Without this – we don’t move. Bones must never be considered in isolation, since they are part of an integrated musculoskeletal system that supports and protects body organs, and enables us to move.
The claim that the tail bone or coccyx is useless, and therefore must be evidence for evolution, as well as evidence against creation, (because no intelligent Creator would make useless organs) is claim made out of ignorance. The human musculo-skeletal system shows all the evidence of brilliant creation. Consider how much clever engineering has already gone into attempts to make a robot that can walk like a human. When robot scientists do manage this it will be because of intelligent, creative design and engineering, not because of chance random processes.

[tamlamoore]

WE ARE ABORIGINAL PEOPLE OF TURTLE ISLAND..WE ARE NOT THE SAME SPECIES..ASE HEKA AMEN RA AHO MOORE NATION GRAND RISING KARMA 💥🙀 REST IN PEACE 🕊️

[ivandate]

Cause today it just go with the fashion

[peterstevenson]

must remember to check comments in future. this video is at worst a dud, at best it has a totally misleading title.

[SplatRatL]

if i got two big tails i would fly like tails

[chanceblevins]

I thought all apes have no tails. Stop before you say baboons, look again. They're monkeys. All though if we had a prehensile tail. It might explain our ability to swim and other apes but...most monkeys can swim.

[formerevolutionist]

So, your evidence that we used to have tails is a handful of scattered bones of an ape that had a coccyx? That's your proof?🤣

[wtfmane]

Lol authentic humans never had tails. Just the hybrids do. Straight up prime mates

[madhanabalaji]

I need to know before ape what we are ... how we look like

[yousraadly]

Lolz that would funny to have a tail .

[lonnie]

where are the fossils of people with a tail

[Glyptdn]

typicall evolution propaganda. Lot of claims but bo explanation

[viewedviewers]

Why are we so content about leading people astray?....God did not create us with tails...we never had tails...😓...you scientist are so smart...put your heads together to rid