Prehensile tail

A prehensile tail is the tail of an animal that has been adapted for use as a "fifth hand". Fully prehensile tails can be used to hold and manipulate objects, and in particular to aid arboreal creatures in finding and eating food in the trees. If the tail cannot be used for this it is considered only partially prehensile - such tails are often used to anchor an animal's body to or dangle from a branch, or as an aid to climbing. The term prehensile means "able to grasp" (from the Latin prehendere, the root of "comprehend" and "apprehend").

Ecology of the prehensile tail

One point of interest is the distribution of animals with prehensile tails. The prehensile tail is predominantly a New world adaptation, especially among mammals. Many more animals in south america have prehensile tails than in africa and southeast asia. It has been argued that prehensile tailed animals predominate in South America as the forest is very dense comapared to Africa or Southeast Asia. In comparison, in less dense forest such as in Southeast Asia it is observed that gliding animals tend to be more common instead, whereas there are few gliding vertebrates in South America. Also south american rainforests tend to have more lianas as there are less large animals to eat them compared to Africa and Asia, which would aid climbers but obstruct gliders. See [2]. Curiously Australia contains many mammals with prehensile tails and also many mammals which can glide, in fact all Australian mammalian gliders have tails that are prehensile to an extent.

Animals with fully prehensile tails

Mammals

New World Monkeys. Many New World monkeys such as those of the family Atelidae, which includes howler monkeys and spider monkeys, have grasping tails (unlike any of their distant Old World monkey cousins).

Opossum. There is anecdotal evidence that opossums may use their prehensile tails to carry nesting material.

Binturong. The only Old World animals with fully prehensile tails are the carnivorous binturongs of Borneo, though even they use only the tip of the tail.

Kinkajou. The kinkajou of South and Central america is the only other animal of the order carnivora to sport the adaptation, although in contrast to the binturong its diet is omnivorous.

Animals with partially prehensile tails

Mammals

New World Monkeys. The capuchin monkey. It is interesting to note that the capuchin is more than intelligent enough to make use of a fully prehensile tail, but since the tail lacks an area of bare skin for a good grip it is only used in climbing and dangling. Other reasons for partial prehensility might include the lack of strength or flexibility in the tail, or simply having no need to manipulate objects with it.

Tree porcupines. The 15 species of tree porcupine divided between 3 genera(Coedou, Sphiggurus, and Echinoprocta). They are found in South America, with one species extending to Mexico. All have prehensile tails.

Anteaters. Anteaters are found in Central and South America. Three of the four species of anteater, the Silky Anteater and the two species of Tamandua, have prehensile tails

Tree Pangolin. One of the few Old World mammals with a prehensile tail.

Possums. This large, diverse group of 63 species forms the suborder Phalangeriformes. All members of the suborder have prehensile tails, however the tails of some members such as the Acrobatidae have only limited prehensile capacity. Notably, all three marsupial glider groups belong to this suborder.