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The prehensile-tail of a mantled howler monkey. A prehensile tail is the tail of an animal that has adapted to grasp or hold objects. [1] Fully prehensile tails can be used to hold and manipulate objects, and in particular to aid arboreal creatures in finding and eating food in the trees.
A prehensile tail. Prehensility is the quality of an appendage or organ that has adapted for grasping or holding. The word is derived from the Latin term prehendere, meaning "to grasp".
They have long prehensile tails with a sensitive, almost hairless, tactile pad on the underside of the distal part. The tail is frequently used as 'fifth limb' while moving through the trees where they make their homes. They also have nails on their fingers and toes, enabling them to climb. Most species have predominantly dark brown, grey, or ...
Monkeys in the family Atelidae, such as the spider monkey, are the only primates to have prehensile tails. New World monkeys' closest relatives are the other simians, the Catarrhini ("down-nosed"), comprising Old World monkeys and apes. New World monkeys descend from African simians that colonized South America, a line that split off about 40 ...
Compared to Old World monkeys, apes have more mobile shoulder joints and arms due to the dorsal position of the scapula, broad ribcages that are flatter front-to-back, a shorter, less mobile spine, and with lower vertebrae greatly reduced - resulting in tail loss in some species. [6] Prehensile tails are found in the New World atelids ...
Some New World species also practice suspensory behaviors by using their prehensile tail, which acts as a fifth grasping hand. [2] Evidence has shown that the extinct ape Proconsul from the Miocene of East Africa developed an early form of suspensory behaviour, and was therefore referred to as a probrachiator. [3]
“In general, a wagging tail just means that a dog is experiencing some emotion,” says Amanda Farah, CPDT-KA, National Training and Behavior Coordinator at Best Friends Animal Society.
A white-tailed deer's tail. The tail is the elongated section at the rear end of a bilaterian animal's body; in general, the term refers to a distinct, flexible appendage extending backwards from the midline of the torso. In vertebrate animals that evolved to lose their tails (e.g. frogs and hominid primates), the coccyx is the homologous ...