THE PACK Message Boards

What is your opinion on werewolves with tails?

Yes wolves should have tails. Not only do the emphasize the fact that they arn't human, but tails serve a very functional purpose. Tails act as a slight counter wieght to help balence animals as the do things such as making sharp high speed turns.

Plus they protect a rather, er, vital part of the body.

More importantly, wolves use tails to help communicate rank within a pack, alpha's hold thier tails high and the rest have to be careful not to hold thier tails as high as that signals to the alpha that they're challenging him.

So if we're talking about thier being a pack of wolves, tails make even more sense.

WolvenOne is right. Tails are very important with wolf communication. So if this movies werewolves do have tails, try not to have them just hang lifelessly there. A tail is a good way to see their emotions and/or rank within the pack.

I've seen too many movie where the werewolves look like hairless cat monkeys, tails make a werewolf a wolf to me. Otherwise they look like a bigfoot or something.

YES!!!

Werewolves must have tails!... a werewolf without a tail looks a bit naked to me

I like my werewolves with tails :mrgreen:

hmmmm....ok, werewolves should have tails. But what about in human form? Should the tail fall off? get sucked back in? or still there but furless?

Figarou wrote:hmmmm....ok, werewolves should have tails. But what about in human form? Should the tail fall off? get sucked back in? or still there but furless?

Well they wouldn't have a tail in human form, but it would probably retract or such when they change back

Where do the Fur, muzzle, claws, fangs, etc. go ?... I imagine it would just get re-absorbed with the rest of the Inhuman pieces.

vuldari wrote:Where do the Fur, muzzle, claws, fangs, etc. go ?... I imagine it would just get re-absorbed with the rest of the Inhuman pieces.

In the movie Van Helsing, the fur/skin fell off. Fangs and everything else retracted.

Guess it would make sence to have the tail retract as well.

Hmmmm.......we could change this theroy. Its up to us on what we want. I never seen a tail shoot out during transformation. In cartoons, yes. Hollywood films, no.


Cartoon-The Grim Adventures of
Billy & Mandy

Humans do have a tail, but, it's been shrunk/atrophied during the course of our evolution.
The tail-bone, or "coccyx" is all that's left of our tail.
In normal humans, all of the vertebrae that made up the tail have now fused into a single mass. In werewolves, I'd suspect that they would unfuse and grow considerably, at least during transformation, and when they revert back to human form, the tail bones would atrophy and fuse back together.

Apokryltaros wrote:Humans do have a tail, but, it's been shrunk/atrophied during the course of our evolution.
The tail-bone, or "coccyx" is all that's left of our tail.
In normal humans, all of the vertebrae that made up the tail have now fused into a single mass. In werewolves, I'd suspect that they would unfuse and grow considerably, at least during transformation, and when they revert back to human form, the tail bones would atrophy and fuse back together.

Whoa! I like it when someone explains it in a scientific way.

The tail can be used for many things besides aestethic purposes.

for example as a representation of the werewolf's moods.

I believe that a long tail on a female would make the female more attractive, and a shorter one on the male, to further distinquish the two genders.

Perhaps the male's tail is fluffier whereas the female's is sleeker?

YES !! they should have tails , after the wolves in van helsing didn't , which they would have been almost perfect if they had tails and more rounded ears.
And really the tail makes the wolf so yes tails are a must.

Yup, I'm all for tails. However, I'm with Figarou on this one. How can it just "retract"? I mean, what happens to all that flesh, nerves, veins, muscle...etc? The most logical thing I can think of is that it simply falls off! The tailbone is fused again and the tail kinda dies and falls away. I dunno....its a touchy subject.

Maybe tails don't fall off at all? Perhaps once the first shift occurs, werewolves keep their tails even when in human form which would be hairless, small and unviewable with pants on.

Just a few things to think about.

ShadowFang wrote:Yup, I'm all for tails. However, I'm with Figarou on this one. How can it just "retract"? I mean, what happens to all that flesh, nerves, veins, muscle...etc? The most logical thing I can think of is that it simply falls off! The tailbone is fused again and the tail kinda dies and falls away. I dunno....its a touchy subject.

Maybe tails don't fall off at all? Perhaps once the first shift occurs, werewolves keep their tails even when in human form which would be hairless, small and unviewable with pants on.

Just a few things to think about.

The tail wouldn't fall off, the muscles and the bones of the tail would atrophy and shrink, and the tail would shrink back.

Think of it as high-speed evolution, rewinding and fast-forward.

While it is true that the tail, unlike almost every other part of the body, doesn’t have anywhere to come from, having it simply drop off would be a bit unhandy for a number of reasons. First you have the loss of mass problem, then there is the simply gross part of having to dispose of a dead tail every time you shift. That would add up after a while.

There have been humans born with tails, believe it or not! This is due to some genetic error. However, I do not know if these babies actually lived to adulthood, and if they did their tails were likely removed when they were still infants.

Depending on how large the tail is, the child may have had his tail surgically removed soon after birth. Sometimes the parents don't opt for surgery, though.
From what I've been told, the tails are always very small, and sometimes curls, like a pig's tail.

Apokryltaros wrote:The tail wouldn't fall off, the muscles and the bones of the tail would atrophy and shrink, and the tail would shrink back.

Think of it as high-speed evolution, rewinding and fast-forward.

Thats cool. I have to agree that I don't like that idea of the tail just simply falling off. Thats kinda gross and unrealistic. If the tail is to "retract" however, what happens to all of the skin tissue? That just can't just get sucked back in. It has to come from somewhere! Those cells have to do something...

They would be reabsorbed, I suppose.

Then the human form would have a large build up of flesh near the tailbone that will kinda "sag". Not very appealing. Though, its not like I have a better suggestion. I would just go for the idea of a tail not falling off to begin with.

Speaking of tails, how long should they be? The average lengths of a wolfs? Or shorter to compensate for the human side? I'm thinking the tail itself would come about mid-way down to the thigh. The added fur would make it appear to come closer to the knee range. If done like that, you can easilly hide a tail in your pants whilst in human form.

You would only need to expose it if the character took his/her pants off for whatever reason. (eg. sex, transformation....etc)

ShadowFang wrote:Then the human form would have a large build up of flesh near the tailbone that will kinda "sag". Not very appealing. Though, its not like I have a better suggestion. I would just go for the idea of a tail not falling off to begin with.

Speaking of tails, how long should they be? The average lengths of a wolfs? Or shorter to compensate for the human side? I'm thinking the tail itself would come about mid-way down to the thigh. The added fur would make it appear to come closer to the knee range. If done like that, you can easilly hide a tail in your pants whilst in human form.

You would only need to expose it if the character took his/her pants off for whatever reason. (eg. sex, transformation....etc)

The tail should be reabsorbed, in human form there should be nothing noticable. These are werewolves, some level of suspension of disbelief is acceptable, even if it contradicts physics and biology.

Length of the tail depends on a few different factors.

Is the tail hanging down straight when being measured?

Are we going to have these tails the same size as wolf tails? Preportionally scaled up to the size of the Werewolf? Or even larger, to act as a counter balence so that wolves can more seamlessly between 2 and 4 legged stance?

I myself am partial to option C, but that's mainly because I have a liking for large fluffy tails.

Why.... yes, I am a fur, why do you ask? ;)

The body could reabsorb the tail

I would say knee length or just slightly longer. Not enough to touch the ground. It really depends on the overall height of the werewolf. When on all fours it should look like a large wolf.