It was not a simple fold of skin or just any malformation: it had muscle, nerve endings, and even rudimentary vertebrae inside, wrapped in a rounded tip like a small sphere.
The appendage measured 12 centimeters and hung just above the coccyx.
The doctors who attended the birth in Brazil found themselves facing one of the rarest cases in modern medicine, one of the few documented in the world of what is known as a ‘true human tail’ or vestigial tail.
Unlike pseudotails, which are only fatty tissue with no internal structure, this appendage moved with its own reflexes when touched.
Specialists explain that it is an evolutionary remnant, a piece that embryonic development should have reabsorbed weeks before birth and that, in this case, remained there, visible, connecting the newborn for a moment with a past that the human species has been leaving behind for millions of years.
