Gills and Tails

E

Eidolan

Registered Senior Member
I read that babies are occasionally born with gills and tails, but this information is not publicized. Does anyone know anything about this?
 
Tails, yes, but I never heard of gills. Deformed babies are born all the time. It's not a proper tail, more of a fleshy growth.
 
It has been a while since you posted this, but I do have to say it is true. When my younger brother was born he had a gill removed. He is 22 now and you would never have known. Hope this helped.
 
All human fetuses go thru gestational phases where they start growing gills and tails. Sometimes, unknown issues will prevent the growth phases from turning off like they "should". Ta-da, gill or tail. Happens occasionally. Don't recall the occurrence rate.
 
There are human tails that are "proper tails", organized tissue like that of the tails of some primates with non-bony tails (genus Macaca, if I recall). There are also instances and/or correlation of extra coccial vertebrae, but I don't think that there are bony tails.


About gills, the human embryo (or embryos of all mammals, birds, and probably even reptiles) don't have actual gills, but they share a common embryonic precursor structure.

Branchial arches, or gill arches, are a series of bony "loops" present in fish, which support the gills. As gills are the primitive condition of vertebrates, all vertebrate embryos develop pharyngeal arches, though the eventual fate of these arches varies between taxa. In gnathostome fish, the first arch develops into the jaws, the second into the hyomandibular complex, with the posterior arches supporting gills. In amphibians and reptiles, many elements are lost including the gill arches, resulting in only the oral jaws and a hyoid apparatus remaining. In mammals and birds, the hyoid is still more simplified.

[...]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branchial_arch
Click to expand...
 
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