Remember “Sweet Tooth”, the fantasy comic book developed into a Netflix series?
The premise of the book was the emergence of hybrid babies that were born part human, part animal.
As far-fetched as it sounded, a mom in Mexico recently gave birth to a girl with a rare condition – true tail.
According to “The Mirror”, the baby was born via C-section at a rural hospital. Doctors noticed an appendage measured 5.7cm in length.
The condition is so rare that the birth was entered into the Journal of Paediatric Surgery, noting that “the child had no previous history of radiation exposure, or infections during pregnancy”, and she was born to “two healthy parents” in their late twenties.
What was even more surprising is that the tail was covered in hair and skin.
Once no other abnormalities were found, doctors got to work removing the tail and reconstruct the area with Limberg plasty.
“The presence of tails in humans is extremely infrequent,“ study authors wrote in the journal.
“In the most recent review by Tojima and Yamada in 2020, which collected case reports in English, French, Japanese, Italian and German, there were only 195 cases of human tails identified until 2017.”
The most recent recorded case was in Brazil in 2021, with approximately 40 reported in medical literature.
The baby boy was born prematurely with a “rounded fibroelastic appendage of approximately 4cm in its largest diameter, supported by a 12cm fibrous cord in the left paravertebral lumbosacral region”, doctors wrote.
According to IFL Science, “true” or “real” tails refer to embryonic tails that remain until birth.