We lost our tails because of an evolutionary split that happened between monkeys and our ancestors,
the ape and human progenitors, some 25 million years ago.
But up until today, the genetic mutation that caused this profound change has remained elusive.
The elimination of ancestral tails has been connected to a distinct DNA mutation, according to a recent study published in Nature.
Bo Xia, the study's principal author and a former graduate student at New York University who is currently a principal investigator at the Broad Institute, suffered a tailbone injury that set off the path leading to this amazing finding.
and started to be fascinated by its evolutionary beginnings.
Animal evolution is driven by genetic changes that occur over millions of years and can range from minor adjustments to more complex modifications