Should Werewolves Have Tails?

[Figarou]

Whether or not a werewolf would use it's tail for balance is debatable, but they should have one.... they just don't look right without a tail...

Don't worry. These werewolves will have tails. They'll be used for communication. Imagine all the tail wagging at the airport when everyone sees their loved one get off the plane and enter the terminal. Asuming everyone is werewolves.

One expert said it best : An upright walking stance isn't that great of an evoloutionary achievement, the stance makes it difficult to balance and causes a lot of stress on our bodies, humans are always one step from disaster.

Improper posture over time will cause back pains. Also lifting with the back is not a good thing to do. Walking upright may not be the best evolutionary achievement, but we already figured out how to prevent certain types of pain by avoiding some causes of stress to the body.


Horses can develop a back pain/problem from to much riding during jumping, show events and racing. Thats why its best to have the jockey who is racing the horse be very light.

[Apokryltaros]

Whether or not a werewolf would use it's tail for balance is debatable, but they should have one.... they just don't look right without a tail...

That much, I wholeheartedly agree.
Like, the illustrations in the book, "The Cycle of the Werewolf," the werewolf looked so odd without a tail, especially the scenes where he was shown from the back.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Most people would need training to balance well, the average guy off the street probably couldn't balance that well. Humans have adapted to life without a tail , which might not be a good thing from what I've read. Humans have a lot of back problems resulting from an upright walking stance. One expert said it best : An upright walking stance isn't that great of an evoloutionary achievement, the stance makes it difficult to balance and causes a lot of stress on our bodies, humans are always one step from disaster.

Of course, you do must realize that the humans' taillessness is our legacy from our tailless ancestors, who apparently could move about better without tails in the trees, than with tails. Our upright stance is the legacy of when our ancient tailless ancestors went from being tree-dwellers to plains-dwellers, who in turn, found that walking on two legs is much faster than walking on knuckles.
You do must realize that we humans, and our immediate ancestors, have had at least 2 million + years of practice with walking on two legs, and that, it is true that supporting 100+ lbs of weight, coupled with the stress of walking around on two legs can cause back problems, I hardly think that the overexaggeration of one anthropologist should be cause to go back to walking on all fours, especially since the human body is not designed to walk on all fours.
Furthermore, a tail would be of little help in balancing in humans, as almost all other animals which are bipedal and have tails, ie, birds, kangaroos, and some dinosaurs, hold their bodies parallel to the ground, whereas in humans, the body is held perpendicular to the ground. A bipedal body that's held parallel to the ground can benefit from a tail, as the tail can act as a counterbalance to prevent the body from falling forward. I don't see how a tail would be able to help a bipedal animal that holds its body perpendicular to the ground.

We discussed further human evoloution in class and what ended up with is odd to say the least. We found out that the average human is actually getting smaller and stockier. Our smallest finger and toe are becoming obsolete as well, then they had larger ears and noses . We ended up with designs that resembled hobbits or dwarves of all things, that's the best desc. I can give anyway.

A werewolf is a combination of both a four legged and a two-legged animal so there stance should be between both, not perpendicular or parallel. Since it is between both of those stances coupled with all the body mass a werewolf would have in his upper body he either needs a tail of moderate weight or length to help balance that body posture/ or he could enourmously muscled back legs....but I would go with the tail myself.

[Scott Gardener]

If you think about it, the projected evolutionary path suggests something akin to the "Gray" aliens. Spooky? However, in order to evolve, selective forces have to influence who does or doesn't reproduce. I can put forth a perfectly good argument that humans are evolving dumber and dumber, at least here in the United States--educated people are having smaller families than uneducated people, and many educated people are choosing not to have children at all.

Since humanity as a whole is spread out over six continents with spatterings in the seventh, throughout the ocean, and two or three in orbit, however, there's plenty of places where this rule does not apply, so thankfully, intellect may yet prevail. It's just coming up short in my neck of the woods.

Getting back to topic, however, my lycanthropes when walking bipedally (and not being shifted human, of course), lean forward somewhat and use the tail as a counter-balance. It makes it easier to loom over someone.

[Kzinistzerg]

And mine have ones because they shift into a half form... which gives them advantages of different species. Nonetheless, tails are an important point visually even if they dont need them evolutinarly. for instance, appendix, tailbone, and alzheimers. (yeah, that last one is not an anatomical thing... oh, wait, it is... it's genetic. It probably was handy in caveman's times, but is pretty useless now. For reasons, read the intro to Scatterbrain. Or PM me.)

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

If you think about it, the projected evolutionary path suggests something akin to the "Gray" aliens. Spooky? However, in order to evolve, selective forces have to influence who does or doesn't reproduce. I can put forth a perfectly good argument that humans are evolving dumber and dumber, at least here in the United States--educated people are having smaller families than uneducated people, and many educated people are choosing not to have children at all.

Since humanity as a whole is spread out over six continents with spatterings in the seventh, throughout the ocean, and two or three in orbit, however, there's plenty of places where this rule does not apply, so thankfully, intellect may yet prevail. It's just coming up short in my neck of the woods.

Your not alone in those woods, the gene pool around here is so shallow in places it looks like a kiddy pool. Speaking of selective forces, one fellow in my class called the AIDS virus just that. Since it is now effecting most third-world situations, and might eventually cause an extinction of those peoples. Intelligent people would protect themselves against while other ignorant peoples would continue killing themselves, it's not nice but he had a point. We also talked about how if someone became immune to it they would probably come out of one of those areas as well.

[Stone Wolf]

Not alone in the woods at all.... I've found only a small group of people that actually have common sense, which is something I've found not to be too common after all....

[Vuldari]

We discussed further human evoloution in class and what ended up with is odd to say the least. We found out that the average human is actually getting smaller and stockier. Our smallest finger and toe are becoming obsolete as well, then they had larger ears and noses . We ended up with designs that resembled hobbits or dwarves of all things, that's the best desc. I can give anyway.

That's odd. I could almost swear that I've heard the exact opposite. ...that humans are actually getting taller. Supposedly, from what I heard, extremely old clothing and functional suilts of armor,(built for "big, strong Men") that have been found were all too small to fit on a full grown adult today. They were tailored for men and women with an average height of about 5' 4". But anyway...

Back on topic:
I am a very "visual" thinker, so to help myself understand the whole balance debate...

Since we are talking about ducks, look at a T-rex, it has a longer tail to balance out the large skull and muscular body of the front, dinos with smaller build toward the front have slimmer tails. Now onto the bird part, a bird like a raven would fall forward with no tail. Flightless birds like DUCKS, chickens, and ostriches use larger posteriers for balance . Humans have shrunken tail bones and some humans are still born with a tail . Humans when they get larger in the chest and stomach tend to get the larger posterier whether it's muscle or fat. An animal with wolf-like feet will need a tail for balance, the size and weight of it will depend on how much weight is on the top. That will be reflected in how large boned it is, the size of the skull, and the amount of muscle. Any good artist will know all of this as I'm sure the one working on the film does.

...I created a crude, (VERY crude...), diagram to help myself understand what we are all talking about. I was expecting to create something that would support my "...it would make a WW 'less' balanced and back heavy", theory, but instead, when I took into account that a Wolves spine attatches closer to the back of the skull, I ended up with a WW that was slumped over slightly, thus making the "counter balance" argument quite logical.
http://img96.exs.cx/img96/6568/posture7iy.gif

As for the human race getting stupider...yeah, I believe that. Of course there are allways exeptions, but as a whole, "Common Sense" never was common at all amongst Homo-Sapiens, and it certainly feels like it is becomming less common by the day.

[Figarou]

...I created a crude, (VERY crude...), diagram to help myself understand what we are all talking about. I was expecting to create something that would support my "...it would make a WW 'less' balanced and back heavy", theory, but instead, when I took into account that a Wolves spine attatches closer to the back of the skull, I ended up with a WW that was slumped over slightly, thus making the "counter balance" argument quite logical.
http://img96.exs.cx/img96/6568/posture7iy.gif

Well, judging by the diagram, it doesn't seem like the tail is used as a counter-balance for the werewolf.

For the one in the middle, yes.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

The one in the middle is the easy example of counterbalance as it's plain to see. The first human has all his weight forcing down for balance. The third the werewolf is what I was thinking if perhaps only a little more so. If we could animate that image as the WW's head would move up/down , far left/right the tail would swing just opposite to help counter his weight combined w/ movement.

[Figarou]

If we could animate that image as the WW's head would move up/down , far left/right the tail would swing just opposite to help counter his weight combined w/ movement.

Ok, you're saying the werewolf's head has extra weight compared to the human's head.

What makes the werewolf's head heavier than a human's head after shifting? What kind of mass are we talking about? Where does it come from?

[Figarou]

Oh, I forgot to add something. Deer, Moose develop stronger neck muscles to support the weight of the antlers on the head. I don't see a long tail on them to counter-balance that.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Oh, I forgot to add something. Deer, Moose develop stronger neck muscles to support the weight of the antlers on the head. I don't see a long tail on them to counter-balance that.

2nd question first, deer, moose, ect...have a four-legged stance and they are closer to the ground so there is less gravity pulling on them as well. They don't have a long, heavy tail because they don't need it.

Now 1st question, the weight comes from the skull which I would guess would have to be at least 2 feet long if not larger, then it comes from the muscles in the head that allow biting, a wolf has 1000 lbs of bite pressure so a werewolf should have 5 or 10 times that. Then you have thick neck muscles which would allow that much pressure to be exerted and allow it to be used in a ripping motion as well. Then the upper torso has muscles supporting that system, so there is quite a bit of upper body weight.

[Kzinistzerg]

Humans' height depends on adequate nutrition. The actual height of people goes something like:

Hunter-gatherer: normal
Agriculture: smaller that (up)
Mid ages: smallerr smaller/ same size as (up)
Now: close to (caveman)

BECAUSE: agriculture gave cheap calories with no actuall nutrition, so the people were maller for a while untill adequate nutrition could become more prominent.

[Rodentia]

to me, the tail no tail argument is easy..if the Were's are supernatural, then they can have them or not as we think looks best. if they are natural, then who's to say if they follow homid evolution or lupid or anything else..we can give them their own logic..


look at the duck-billed platypus...

we can make anything work...

[Figarou]

Now 1st question, the weight comes from the skull which I would guess would have to be at least 2 feet long if not larger, then it comes from the muscles in the head that allow biting, a wolf has 1000 lbs of bite pressure so a werewolf should have 5 or 10 times that. Then you have thick neck muscles which would allow that much pressure to be exerted and allow it to be used in a ripping motion as well. Then the upper torso has muscles supporting that system, so there is quite a bit of upper body weight.

I still can't see how the tail can be used as a counter balance. There is not much muscle on it and its very light.

[Kzinistzerg]

Fur and muscle. also, it can be used to balace where you would need just that little extra weight... and also for balance when jumping or running or such.

[Stone Wolf]

Werewolves should have tails, because they are half wolf and half human right... so in human form they are more human, in their wolf form they are more wolf, so logically depending on which form they are in the more traits they will have connecting them to that form....

A tail would make a good counter weight even if it doesn't weigh that much... for example if you lean forward and you get a small book and hold it behind you, you will become more balanced... All you need is a small amount of weight to counter the weight that is putting you off-balanced...

[Figarou]

Werewolves should have tails, because they are half wolf and half human right... so in human form they are more human, in their wolf form they are more wolf, so logically depending on which form they are in the more traits they will have connecting them to that form....

A tail would make a good counter weight even if it doesn't weigh that much... for example if you lean forward and you get a small book and hold it behind you, you will become more balanced... All you need is a small amount of weight to counter the weight that is putting you off-balanced...

And what if you lean over to pick up something heavy? How would the tail act as a counter weight in that situation?

For the last time, the tail is not used as a counter weight. Its real purpose is for dusting.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

You are thinking of the weight of a wolf's tail, which is light to a human. A werewolf's tail is going to be heavier than that, a human could still lift it of course it's not THAT heavy.

Do you fall over when you bend over ? It throws you off balance but you position your legs to account for it. Now if you do it for a long time you might fall, you have to practice in order to hold the position. If you plan on being near the ground for any length of time you could do the logical thing and either crouch down or lay down........

[Figarou]

You are thinking of the weight of a wolf's tail, which is light to a human. A werewolf's tail is going to be heavier than that, a human could still lift it of course it's not THAT heavy.

Do you fall over when you bend over ? It throws you off balance but you position your legs to account for it. Now if you do it for a long time you might fall, you have to practice in order to hold the position. If you plan on being near the ground for any length of time you could do the logical thing and either crouch down or lay down........

If you fall over when you bend over or even touch the toes, then something is wrong with your equilibrium.


When you hold the position for a long time, then you get tired. Even standing straight up for a long time can be a problem. You end up fainting and fall flat on the ground.

[Kzinistzerg]

I vote we ask a werewolf...

If it is in a halfwolf halfhuman form it would most likely have a tail.

[Silverfang]

In my opinion, the tail is essenial, ok when a werewolf is standing on 2 paws it may not affect its sence of balance as much but when he / she is on all fours , then it helps in changing directions faster when running. Also it's used in comunications in wolf packs.

[Figarou]

In my opinion, the tail is essenial, ok when a werewolf is standing on 2 paws it may not affect its sence of balance as much but when he / she is on all fours , then it helps in changing directions faster when running. Also it's used in comunications in wolf packs.

Of course.

The tail is not used to maintain balance for standing on 2 legs.

Now, let me ask you this.

Would the tail have the opposite effect if he wagged it? Would it throw him to the ground? Of course not. If it was used to keep him balanced, then that tail would have to be big and heavy.

[Kzinistzerg]

Air drag whe jumping, also. Poofie, to make more impressive.

Uses of a tail.