Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. Humans have many ...

Tails are a common feature across the animal kingdom. Nearly every class of vertebrate has them. Reptiles use them for self-defense and attacking prey. Tails help with balance and communication in ...

Approximately 25 million years ago, an ancestor of both humans and apes genetically diverged from monkeys and lost its tail. No one had identified the genetic mutation responsible for this dramatic ...

Ever thought why don’t humans have tails? It certainly is one of the marathon questions that scientists themselves have been racking their brains about for years. Whereas most of the other species ...

They’re not monkeying around with this breakthrough. Researchers from New York University Langone Health may have finally learned how early humans took a major step away from predecessor primates in ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Our very ancient animal ancestors had tails. Why don’t we? Somewhere around 20 million or 25 million years ago, when apes diverged from monkeys, our branch of the tree of life shed ...

A genetic parasite may have robbed humans and other apes of their tails. “It was like lightning struck once,” says Jef Boeke, a geneticist at New York University Langone Health, and ape behinds ...

Researchers discover a potential genetic connection between humans' tail loss and a type of birth defect. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how ...