The mice with no tails Unlike most monkeys, apes — including humans — and their close extinct relatives don’t have tails.

Humans’ closest primate relatives lost their tails about 25 million years ago, but exactly how has remained a mystery. A breakthrough in genetic research may finally offer answers.

A new study suggests that apes, including chimpanzees and humans, lack tails because a genetic parasite altered a gene important for tail development when the group diverged from other primates ...

Why Don’t Humans Have Tails? An Old Genetic Mutation Could Explain Why Monkeys, but Not Apes, Have the Extra Appendage Scientists have pinpointed a genetic change that might have led the ...

The lack of a tail is one thing that separates apes — including humans — from other primates. Insertion of a short DNA sequence into a gene that controls tail development could explain tail ...

However, humans and our closest primate relatives — the great apes — said farewell to tails about 25 million years ago, when the group split from Old World monkeys.

De Agostini via Getty Images Looking at DNA samples of people, apes without tails, and monkeys, the scientists discovered that the latter is missing a piece of genetic code shared by the former two.

Related: What did the last common ancestor between humans and apes look like? Apes can be subdivided into the great and ...

When apes diverged from monkeys, our branch of the tree of life shed tails. Scientists have identified at least one key genetic mutation that led to the change.

humans, diverged genetically from monkeys about 25 million years ago and lost the tails that other monkeys have. Until now, it was unknown what kind of genetic factor caused great apes to lose ...

Humans Don't Walk Around With Tails Likely Because of This Genetic Mutation Millions of years ago, our ancient ancestors, the apes, lost their tails. A new study shows how (and hints at why).