Incredible Tails

By: Dr. Bobby Corrigan

Tails. As wildlife management professionals you see them all the time. Bushy, naked, long, short, scaly or hairy. Tails held up, hanging down, tails dragging behind, tails wrapped around branches and vines.

Bobby Corrigan

But how much do you know about how tails serve the wild animals you deal with on a regular basis? How, for example, do tails assist the urban wildlife species in their daily lives and activities around both natural and human structures?

Balance and climbing

For those mammals such as tree squirrels and raccoons that commonly travel along and over narrow lines and surfaces (telephone lines, tree limbs, roof tops, gutters), maintaining balance is of obvious importance. So the tails of these mammals tend to be long and furry, with the fur fanning out on both sides of the tail, helping with balance.

Mice, roof rats and opossums have tails that are especially well adapted for climbing and clinging to narrow surfaces. In fact, the tail of the house mouse contains ridges along the length of the tail, to facilitate good grippage as it wraps the tail around twigs, wires, conduit lines and the like.

Leverage, stability

Most of the mammals that climb also use their tails for leverage between surfaces such as tree crotches, within the wall voids, and the like. In this way, they have an extra “tool” to assist them in shimmying up, or scooting down. The tail is also used as a stabilizer for some mammals during their feeding activities as well as for when they “sit up” to sniff and explore the air around them.

Temperature Control

For small mammals with proportionally large surface volume but small body mass, such as mice and rats, the tail is used to help regulate and maintain body temperature. Heat can be dissipated thru the tail when the tail is extended out and away from the body, or conserved by keeping the tail close to the body.

The bushy tails of tree squirrels are used by the squirrels when they need protection from the cold winds of winter. On cold days, the squirrel’s tail is placed back over the body and spread out, serving as a coat. Conversely on hot summer days, the squirrel’s tail will hang down away from the body.

Communication

In a good number of mammals, tails play a role in both direct and indirect communication. Just as dogs wag their tails, so do coyotes and wolves. House mice and peromyscus mice conduct tail rattling when they are excited.

Rodents communicate, in part, by depositing pheromones along trails using urine, feces, and urogenital secretions. Tails will indirectly spread these pheromones and thus the messages as the tails drag behind the rodent’s body.

Deer and rabbits raise their bright white tail scuts when danger approaches and they “high-tail” it out of an area. Beavers tail-slap the water to communicate various messages of territory.

Multi-functional specialization

Some mammals have tails that serve them in highly specialized ways. With some bats, the tail and the tail region of the body is modified to assist the bat in eating. A special leathery membrane connects the hind feet of baits to the tail on both sides forming a pouch; the uropatagium.

Beyond hanging and clinging, the opossum also uses its tail as carry strap to transport items such as bunches of leaves for their nests, sticks, and their young.

Tail hazards

As useful as tails are to mammals, they also have a downside. A tail dragging behind may get caught in or between things such as rock or tree crevices. Or, tails can be snagged on, or in, any of the various types of traps (hold traps, glue traps, snap traps) installed by humans. And, of course, a tail lagging behind offers a predator one last chance to capture the prey.

Finally, we can close our discussion of the incredible tails of mammals with one last, but more subtle example. Young elephants hang on to the tails of the adults in their herd to avoid becoming separated and left behind. In many ways, it is all behavioral adaptations to form, and function — from the “wild animals” to the civilized.

Understanding the biology of the nuisance wildlife we deal with every day, and the adaptations they have made as a result of their environment, can give us the insight we need to do a better job protecting homes and other structures from a wildlife invasion.

You can reach Corrigan, president of RMC Pest Management Consulting, at mywmp@questex.net.