Prehensile Tail

Where are you looking?

Wouldn't life be just super if you had an extra hand? One that could be used to fetch your coffee or dial your phone? Or throttle the crap out of that yappy dog? Look no further than behind you, attached to your spine. If you are a bit of a pickpocket in the midst of those that keep watching where your hands are at, this might become extremely useful.

It's the world of fiction. In here you can be far less picky with species. Dogs? Sure. Cats? Why not. Lizard Folk? Certainly. Monkeys? Duh. Gorillas? ... well we said monkeys, already, didn't we?

Also a common feature on cartoon depictions of snakes or snake-like characters, who have no arms or hands otherwise.

It should be noted that a few Beast Men and most Succubi and Incubi and Hot as Hell demons tend to have these for Fantastic Arousal Service. For the less dexterous there may still be another option. See also Beware My Stinger Tail when the tail has stuff attached, and Handy Feet for other dexterous appendages. Can fall under Bizarre Alien Limbs.

Just to mention, "prehensile" means "adapted for seizing, grasping, or taking hold of something". As the page image so clearly demonstrates.

---

Examples:

Advertising

• The mascot for the Australian energy matchmaking service "Foxie" uses her tail to pull the draw-cords on lamps.

Anime & Manga

• Bleach: Ulquiorra's second form has a tail which he uses for slamming people into the ground and holding people up by the throat, let alone the fact it looks like a whip.
• The Demon Girl Next Door: Yuko, the titular "demon girl", has a particularly long spade-tipped tail which she can freely move with conscious effort. She often pokes, prods, pats, or slaps people with its tip, or wraps her tail around them as a show of affection, though she's not capable of grasping with it. It's highly reactive to her emotions, and it often betrays her true feelings when she's trying to bluff, boast, or brag to save face. She finds it extremely inconvenient; it's a point of weakness as when something happens to the tip of it, she feels it all over her body, and all too often people will grab her by the tail when she's trying to get away from them.
• Digimon:
  • Digimon Adventure: MetalSeadramon grabs Scorpiomon with his tail and sends him falling to his death as punishment for his failure.
  • Digimon Tamers:
    • Sandiramon constricts Kyubimon with his tail. Concept art and action figures depict him holding a staff with his tail but he does not do this in the anime.
    • Megidramon does a similar thing to Beelzemon shortly before Beelzemon kills Makuramon and breaks free.
  • Digimon Xros Wars: The Young Hunters Who Leapt Through Time: Regardless of form, Gumdramon is able to manipulate his tail as freely as his arms. Even more so since his tail is extendable to an unknown limit. As Arresterdramon, he can even use it to constrict things with crushing force. Beware My Stinger Tail is also in effect as Gumdramon's tail ends in a hammer and Arresterdramon's ends in a trident.
• Doki Doki! PreCure: The fairy Melan invokes this in her dragon form. When Cure Diamond attacks her from behind, Melan attacks her from behind by whipping her tail.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Young Saiyans, like Goku, have monkey-like tails capable of supporting their body weight, but it's unknown if adult Saiyans can suspend themselves with their tails. In fact, Saiyan tails are notoriously sensitive, and the only instance of a full-grown Saiyan using their tail to attack is when Raditz knocks Krillin through Kame House early on in DBZ.
  • Frieza is especially notorious for using his highly prehensile tail to not only bludgeon opponents, but strangle them. Unfortunately, his tail becomes a minor weak point when Goku decides to bite him to avoid being decapitated.
  • Cell is quite similar, strangling Trunks with his tail before stealing his time machine and attempting to do the same to Android 16.
• Kekkaishi has Princess, a kitsune who has nine tails that she often uses to wrap an opponent to the point of nearly mummifying them.
• Makai Senki Disgaea: Etna uses her demon tail as a third hand in the trailer.
• My Hero Academia: Mashirao Ojiro's power manifests itself as a large, prehensile tail. He can use it to grab things or attack enemies in the form of a Tail Slap.
• Naruto: The Tailed Beasts' tails can be used as extra limbs. It's incredibly easy for their hosts to utilize the tails (and chakra appendages), even though a gentle grasp can crush boulders.
• To Love Ru: Deviluke's inhabitants. Most of them, especially the females also can have Fantastic Arousal with their tails.
• Yes! Pretty Cure 5: Kawarino blocks attacks with his tails. He can temporarily concetrates his enemies' powers by in his tails rotating them.

Comic Books

• Critter: Cassia/Critter has a metal tail made of an unknown composition that Cass can control as a fifth limb via her telekinesis. She uses this to aid her movement through the city and as an extra limb to attack or incapacitate her opponents.
• Fine Print: A cubi's tail can function as a dextrous third limb.
• Hellboy: Hellboy has one, which makes him seem kind of monkey-like as a baby.
• Marsupilami: The Marsupilami has a several-meters-long tail that can grab things and even twist itself in a knot to punch foes.
• Marvel Universe:
  • Spider-Man: While it's normally used to shoot acid, the Scorpion is very able to use his mechanical tail to take hostages if he needs to by wrapping it around potential victims.
  • X-Men: Part of Nightcrawler's physical mutation is a long, prehensile tail. How capable is it? Swashbuckler Kurt Wagner has been known to use it to wield a third sword when he's Dual Wielding, and he's more than capable of matching master fencers with it. This is in addition to its being strong enough to lift a full-sized adult's body off the ground or restrain a punching fist.
• MonsterVerse: At one point in the Kingdom Kong graphic novel, Camazotz uses his tail for grappling in his fight with Kong.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW): Tangle the Lemur has a very flexible tail which she can extend and contract at will. She can use it as a rope, slingshot, coil or an extra arm.
• Wonder Woman: Those who become avatars of Urzkartaga and transform into the Cheetah can use their tails to grab and strangle foes. At the start of "The Witch and the Warrior", the third Cheetah uses his tail to strangle Superman. He's working for Circe at the time, so it's unclear which of their magic allows the attack to be so effective.

Comic Strips

• Dilbert: There's a monkey who has an advantage over humans in the workplace because of his tail. He has directly questioned why humans designed the default mouse and keyboard layout, since the arrangement seems specifically made to accommodate two hands for typing and a tail to use the mouse.

Fan Works

• Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): Monster X (San and Vivienne Graham) can use their tail for strangling in a fight.
• BlazBlue Alternative: Remnant: Makoto Nanaya is shown using her tail to block attacks and punch people around, as seen in initiation where she used it to block a strike from an Ursa and later to deliver Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs to Cardin during a sparring match.
• Calvin & Hobbes: The Series: Calvin demands to see Hobbes' tail in anticipation of this as he's holding a water balloon.
• The Pieces Lie Where They Fell: Xvital is an ahuizotl, and she and the rest of her species naturally have a third hand on the end of their tails.
• Rocketship Voyager: Nee'Lix is a rodent-like creature with a prehensile tail who evolved from a forest-dwelling species. The tail comes in handy on the eponymous rocketship, which doesn't have Artificial Gravity.

Films — Animated

• Aladdin: Abu is a monkey who uses his tail to manipulate and carry things. This is helpful for a thief like Aladdin.
• Home on the Range: The cows can't really hold anything in their hooves, so the animators gave them prehensile tails and tail tufts instead.
• The Jungle Book (1967): Mowgli's second encounter with Kaa. After Mowgli sits down, a long tail hoists him up into a tree, to Mowgli's surprise it's Kaa. After untangling Kaa's coils off, Kaa attempts to hypnotize Mowgli again either by trying to look at the boy in the eyes or grabbing his hand and ankle with his tail. Ultimately, Mowgli's efforts to avoid Kaa are in vain as the snake is able to hypnotize him.
• Kung Fu Panda: Viper and Tai Lung can grab things with their tails. Tai Lung's ability to do this is instrumental in his escaping from imprisonment. Since his hands are tied up, he uses his tail to pick the lock of his shackles with a feather.
• Rango: Rattlesnake Jake, who wields a gatling gun in place of a rattle at the end of his tail. Despite this handicap, he is dextrous enough to be able to take fill a small glass with his venom and divest Rango's sixshooter of all but one of its bullets.
• "The Rescuers Down Under": Frank manages to unlock a door in McLeach’s dungeon using his tail.
• The Return of Hanuman: Maruti uses his tail once to grasp on a branch to hang on.
• Son of Batman: During his fight with Batman, Killer Croc uses his tail to grab various things, including Batman himself.
• In Turning Red, this is downplayed. When Mei is in panda form, she can use her tail to grasp large objects and people.

Films — Live-Action

• Alien: The aliens tend to use their tails to lift people up after impaling them on their tail tips.
• The Host (2006): The fish-creature uses its tail to brachiate under bridges and to carry off its victims.
• Outlander (2008): The Moorwen is a giant, lizardish thing, but its prehensile tail can be used to grasp, slice, or impale its victims.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014): Splinter can extend his tail and use it like another arm.

Literature

• Bazil Broketail: The dragons' tails are so dexterous that they can grab even small objects (by coiling around them), basically serving as a third prehensile limb. This allows them even to wield additional weapons in battle, in the form of tail maces or tail swords.
• Ciaphas Cain: In Death or Glory, a young tech-priestess of the Adeptus Mechanicus has a mechadendrite attached to the base of her spine. Besides engineering work, she uses it to operate an improvised weapon while piloting a Sentinel load-lifter, grab extra snack bars, or freak people out by leaning on it while it's under her robes, making it look like she's sitting on thin air. The question, of course, is how Cain came to know exactly where the mechanical tentacle was attached to the woman.
  Inquisitor Amberley Vail: How Cain discovered this we can only speculate; perhaps it came up in casual conversation.
• InCryptid: Sam Taylor, being a simian therianthrope, has a prehensile tail and Handy Feet in his natural form.
• Race Against Time: The protagonist first figures out he's not really living in a 20th-century small town when he discovers that his dog climbs trees and his kitten has a prehensile tail.
• Redwall: Squirrels are often described as hanging by their tails, something real squirrels cannot do.
• Septimus Heap: These are the main weapons of Land Wurms, with which they grab their prey and hold them.

Live-Action TV

• Angel once had a case that lead him to a demon brothel and one of the prostitutes, who had a tail, flirted with him. When the madam comes to throw him out, the prostitute turns to face her with her back to Angel, holds up both hands and says "look, no hands" while grabbing Angel's junk with her tail.
• Babylon 5 reveals that Centauri males have six prehensile... appendages, which can be used to (for instance) cheat at cards. They're penises. Six prehensile penises.
• The Big Bang Theory: Parodied when the foursome play a group roleplaying game as bad guys approach and Leonard mentions that they're on his tail... but it's prehensile, so it's not a problem.
  Leonard: They're on my tail! But it's prehensile, so I can handle them.
• Power Rangers: More than a few Zords and monsters have prehensile tails.
• Teen Wolf: Jackson acquires one when he becomes a reptilian creature called a kanima. Though he later becomes a werewolf, he retains some of his former kanima abilities including the ability to grow a tail. In the series finale he uses his tail to knock out a bad guy while tied up and then lifts the keys to his handcuffs from the guy's pocket.
• Ultra Series: Tons of kaiju have this ability in the various series, often overlapping with Tail Slap. The most infamous of them is Eleking from Ultraseven, who can wrap his tail around an Ultraman or another monster and electrocute them with it.

Pinballs

• Fathom: The mermaids have long serpentine tails that are used to grab undersea anchors and choke unwary swimmers.

Puppet Shows

• Fraggle Rock: The Fraggles have somewhat prehensile tails—they can be used as paintbrushes and can wrap around each other to play tug-o'-tails (like tug-o'-war, but with... you know). According to the episode "Wembley's Wonderful Whoopee Water", they are also strong enough to support their owners' whole weight.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • In the 3.5th edition, a namesake feat from both Serpent Kingdom and Savage Species can make the tail of any species with a tail attack prehensile enough to wield weapons. Please also note the Warshaper Prestige Class, with which a shapechanger can grow a tail attack; combined with this feat, it means a prehensile tail in pretty much any form.
  • In the 4th edition, Tieflings can take a feat that gives them this (see page image above). You can even pick locks or pockets with it. Multiple female Tieflings in D&D works have made jokes about the myriad uses of their tails.
  • The evil apelike su-monsters have prehensile tails, which they use to hang upside down in ambush, freeing up all of its claws for an attack. They also have a signed language that's spoken entirely with the tail.
• Hc Svnt Dracones: A Surgery, the flavor text of which indicates it may have been intended for rats and certain species of lizard, but Pulse held it back until it could be applied to any species of Vector.
• Mice and Mystics: Unlike the other mice, Filch the Lovable Rogue can wield a dagger with his tail, potentially letting him triple-wield.
• Munchkin Star Munchkin has a Tailgun item only usable by Felines. What makes it notable for this trope is that the art depicts a normal-looking gun meant for hands curled up in a Prehensile Tail, not a gun specially designed to be tail-mounted.
• Pathfinder: Tieflings can take the alternate racial trait "prehensile tail", which lets them retrieve small objects from their person as a swift action. Since the default trait it replaces is only useful for sorcerers, most take the tail.
• Warhammer: Some Skaven are dexterous enough to wield a weapon with their tails on top of Dual Wielding with their hands, such as the infamous assassin Deathmaster Snikch. Skaven heroes in the spinoff skirmish game Mordheim can pick up the "Tail Fighting" skill to do the same, while the models for Skaven Throwers in Blood Bowl's 5th Edition are depicted passing the ball with their tails — though in that game, prehensile tails are a mutation that any mutant players are able to develop as they level up, not just Skaven.

Video Games

• Albion: Two recruitable aliens use this as a separate equipment slot, capable of holding either a one-handed weapon or a shield (the former being the game's only instance of Dual Wielding.)
• BlazBlue: Continuum Shift: Makoto Nanaya slaps her opponent silly with her big squirrel tail during her throw.
• Crypt of the NecroDancer: Coda is a goblin-like creature who wields a dagger in the coiled tip of her long tail. Indeed, besides being a musical term, "coda" means "tail" in Italian.
• Final Fantasy IX: Zidane Tribal has a prehensile monkey tail, although he only uses it once (to hang from the rafters of the pilot's cabin of an Airship). He makes a more combative use for it in the introduction cutscene to Dissidia Final Fantasy, hanging onto Tidus' leg, who then sends him soaring at Exdeath in order to break his concentration. In Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, Zidane's Limit Burst shows him drawing his one of his daggers with his tail.
• Gigantic: Mozu uses her tail to wield a magic wand.
• Kingdom Hearts: Sora's lion form in Kingdom Hearts II normally holds his Keyblade in his mouth, but at one point, he briefly holds it with his tail while opening a new pathway between the worlds.
• Marsupilami: Hoobadventure: As with the source material, the Marsupilamis have full control over their absolutely massive tails. This translates very well into gameplay abilities, as they can use it for things like rolling, latching onto hooks, and attacking enemies by tying a knot in the tail, and then flinging it forward.
• Pokémon: Aipom and its evolved form Ambipom are monkeys with hands on their tails — one in Aipom's case, and two for Ambipom. Their Pokédex entries specify some uses, such as shucking nuts, communicating (by connecting with the tails of other Aipom/Ambipom), balance (when leaping from tree branches), and attacking (specifically, with Double Hit, the move that enables Aipom to evolve into Ambipom). Many of Aipom's Pokédex entries also indicate that since it deftly uses its tail so much, its real hands have become rather clumsy.
• Sonic Lost World: Tails, who mainly uses his two tails for flying, uses one of them to grab a toothpick from Zomom's sandwich and reprogram Zavok's machine to prevent it from turning him into a brainwashed robot.
• Spyro in Spyro: A Hero's Tail uses his purple dragon tail to grab on and swing on poles this way to get across areas that are too wide for him to fly and he needs to use poles to get across them.

Webcomics

• El Goonish Shive: In her Omega form, Grace can use two of her tails to hold an enemy in place while the third slams them in a Tail Slap attack.
• Forestdale: Kyle Kendricks, an anthropomorphic fox, has one of these and frequently utilizes it to cheat at card games with his friends.
• Goblins: Kin's tail is very agile and... sensitive. It's also strong enough to snap a person's neck.
• The Greenhouse: The demon 'Red' starts off as little more than an anthropomorphic mist with horns, but develops a prehensile tail along with her more humanoid appearance as she gets more solid. She can't do much with it besides twine it around her host, Mica, though, because she's intangible. Once she's able to to touch Mica, she finds poking her with the tail to be endlessly fascinating.
• Slightly Damned: Rhea has an unusually long tail (hence her surname "Snaketail"), and when fighting she grips her weapon in it.
• Spinnerette: The superhero Katt O'Nine Tails has nine of these due to a magical cat she once rescued. They double as Combat Tentacles as well.
• S.S.D.D.: Kerrie, a binturong, has a prehensile tail that she once used to trip another Super-Soldier with bionic legs. When they later go into space, she has some fun with it in zero-g, but it proves insufficient to stop g-forces.

Web Original

• RWBY: Some Faunus characters have this:
  • Sun Wukong uses his monkey tail to hang from a lamppost and drink tea, among other things.
  • Tyrian Callows has a scorpion tail which is also prehensile.
• SCP Foundation: Dr. Bright considers this one of the reasons why he likes simian bodies.
• Sock Series: The smoking demon is just a head with a tail, but it can move its tail like an arm.
• Things Mr. Welch Is No Longer Allowed to Do in an RPG: One of the many rules put in place for Mr. Welch specifically forbids him from having a prehensile anything.

Western Animation

• American Dragon: Jake Long: In addition to being a dragon's Natural Weapon to pummel their enemies, Jake occasionally uses his tail as an extra limb to access objects beyond his normal reach.
• Ben 10: Kevin 11 has a tail like this when he's in his mutant form. It's used very rarely, however.
• DC Nation: In Bat Man in Shanghai, Catwoman has a long tail which she can use to grab things and move around with.
• Gary the Rat: Gary's is used for Amusing Injuries because even though it's fully capable of moving around and grabbing things, he just drags it with reckless abandon.
• Jackie Chan Adventures: Drago has used his tail as an extra limb.
• Kim Possible: In "The Full Monkey", when Kim is turned into a humanoid monkey, she uses her tail to grab a weight out of Doug's hand and throw it at Monkey Fist, then undoes the shackles on her chair.
• The Lionhearts: As a retired circus star, Lana Lionheart can grab things in the tassel of her tail.
• Littlest Pet Shop (2012): Pepper, a skunk, can grab various things with her tail. She can also balance atop of it for increased height.
• Looney Tunes: Pepe Le Pew has been known to use his tail to ensnare prospective girlfriends.
• Masters of the Universe:
  • He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983): Whiplash has a long tail he primarily uses as a weighted cudgel in battle, through he has shown to be able to pick up small things when he needs it. Oddly enough, aptly named Lizard Man lacks this quality.
  • She-Ra and the Princesses of Power:
    • Scorpia has a scorpion-like tail ending with a stinger that allows her to club and paralyze anyone who comes within range. She is a rather downplayed example, however as she isn't able to use it for much else.
    • Double Trouble has a long, reptilian tail which they use to nick Bow's tracker pad and then carry it around. With their shapeshifting, they are also able to replicate Scorpia's tail.
  • She-Ra: Princess of Power:
    • Scorpia can use her scorpion tail to wrap around and immobilize opponents. In one episode, she uses it to prevent her teammate Mantenna from putting his foot in his mouth.
    • Konseal have monkey-like tails that can lift human-sized characters up into the air.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • The ponies are occasionally shown to have prehensile tails, despite the tails apparently consisting only of hair (although Pinkie Pie at least does have full Prehensile Hair as well). They are often useful for doing things which would normally be difficult due to lack of hands. Most notably Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy. Which makes Rarity cutting off her tail in the second episode seem more violent.
  • One of the most prominent examples of this is in "Buckball Season", where Fluttershy repeatedly and deliberately uses her tail to great effect to catch and deflect incoming buckballs throughout the episode, even holding one in her tail at one point.
  • Ahuizotl, Daring Do's arch-nemesis, has a hand on the end of his tail, just as ahuizotls were said to have in Aztec Mythology.
  • Discord also uses his tail this way, with the added bonus that he can stretch it to any length at will, most often to wrap around a pony and bring her face-to-face with him. He once does a Badass Fingersnap with the tuff of white fur at the end of it (to keep it more discreet than his usual show of magic).
• The New Adventures of Jonny Quest: The Reptilian in "Peril of the Reptilian" has a big, powerful tail that he can use to smash things or grab people.
• In an episode of The Simpsons, Homer becomes a mascot known as "Safety Salamander", with a full costume that includes a tail. Late in the episode, he hugs Lisa and the tail begins patting her on the shoulder. When Lisa asks him how he's doing that, he can only reply "I don't know" in a baffled voice.
• Star vs. the Forces of Evil:
  • Ferguson wonders how much "Action" he could get if he had a real Prehensile Tail.
  • Miss Heinous has one as well about which Saint Olga tells her an old "Rhyme": Guys don't make passes at girls with devil... tails.
• Tiny Toon Adventures: Fifi LaFume can use her tail to grab "boyfriends", as a bat (as seen in "Buster at the Bat"), as a shield (as seen in the Defenders of the Universe licensed game), and to spray stink (being a skunk and all).
• Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!: Wubbzy can use his tail to wrap around and hold objects. The show's first episode, "A Tale of Tails", addresses his prehensile tail as the main story element.
• Xiaolin Showdown: The Shen Gong Wu Monkey Staff gradually transforms its user into a monkey, offering enhanced strength and agility useful for a kung-fu master. In addition as the transformation nears completion, the user will sprout a tail which has all the utility of a normal monkey's tail, including allowing the user to lift their own bodyweight (or others').

Real Life

• Some animals have this, like New World monkeys, chameleons, possums, and seahorses — primarily for the purpose of holding onto branches. Here's the full list.

---