How humans became tailless and why it would be a good idea for us to get our tails back

“The tail did not prevent our ancestors from standing on their feet and did not hinder the development of intelligence, it was a temporary loss at one of the turns of evolution,” believes Alexander Markov, Doctor of Biological Sciences. Then what is the evolutionary meaning of the loss of the tail? Find out in episode 14 of the CounterEvolution podcast with Alexander Markov and Olga Orlova.

CounterEvolution is a podcast about alternative scenarios of human development. It seems that something has gone wrong with humanity. We know a lot, we know how to do a lot, but we continue to exterminate each other and do not understand the most basic things about each other. Two presenters: biologist Alexander Markov and scientific journalist, editor-in-chief of T-invariant Olga Orlova decided to discuss how modern humans have acquired these or those properties, and what they would be like today if they had developed differently or lost some of their original abilities.

What would happen if we had tails? We would wrap ourselves in them and keep warm in cold times. And on hot days we’d fan ourselves like a fan. We’d use our long tails to reach objects from high places. That’s the upside! Why have we lost it? In this episode of CounterEvolution, the podcast hosts lamented that humans lost their tails and found out that it wasn’t because they prevented our ancestors from standing on two legs, but because it was easier to adapt to travelling up trees on their hands.

The topic of episode 14 is tailed and untailed humans.

The first episodeis about cold, the second episode isabout heat, the third episode isabout the sense of smell, the fourth episode isabout war, the fifth episodeis about youth and aging, the sixth episodeis about innate conscience, the seventh episodeis about reproduction, the eighth episodeis about mutations, the ninth episodeis about genetic inheritance of socially significant traits, the tenth episodeis about the pros and cons of monogamy, the eleventh episodeis about depression, and the twelfth episodeis about religion. And the thirteenth is about demographic upheaval.