Tails might look like nature’s afterthought but for many animals, they’re multitasking power tools. Whether it’s balancing, fighting, flirting, or escaping predators, tails do way more than just wag.

Dogs use their tails to communicate. Eastimages/Moment via Getty Images Whether they belong to reptiles, insects, birds or mammals, tails serve a wide variety of purposes. Modern animals use their ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Grass lizards have the ...

A 150-million-year-old bird fossil, Zhengheornis, reveals the first step in the evolution of the short tails seen in modern ...

Q. My third-grader came up with these two questions: Which animals do not have tails? How many different ways do animals use tails? A. Most vertebrates, that is, animals with a backbone, have an ...

WASHINGTON — 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 tails.

See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. A cat will often use its tail to convey emotions, swishing it from side ...

Seeing photos of cold-stunned iguanas in Miami during a winter cold spell brought back an early memory. I was a seventh-grade intern in the reptile house at Audubon Zoo in New Orleans, when I jumped ...

With a nearly impenetrable hide covered in spikes, the ankylosaurus was like a dinosaur version of an armored tank. And like any battlefield behemoth, it boasted a fearsome weapon: a bone-crushing ...