Indian teenager has 20cm 'tail' removed from back

Now this is a tail and a half. A teenager has finally decided to have a 20cm long growth removed from his back – the longest known in medical history – after struggling to sit down.

The boy and his family kept his defect quiet for years due to 'social stigma'. But action in the end had to be taken to help the boy sit and sleep at night so his family arranged for his bony tail to be surgically removed.

Dr Pramod Giri, head of the neurosurgery department, at the Super Specialty Hospital, told the Times of India the abnormality could have been rectified as soon as the child was born.

"But the parents as well as the child hid the fact all these years," Giri said. "When the size of the tail grew and a bone developed inside it, the tail began to press on the boy's back. It was cosmetically and psychologically disturbing for him. Hence the parents approached us.

"This case is very rare and calls for a presentation in a medical journal as the tail is apparently the longest recorded so far."

Medically speaking, human tails would naturally lead to bladder problems and even pain and loss of function in the lower limbs or legs.

Earlier this year however, transhumanist Zoltan Istvan said for those who wanted human tails, like his friends, gene editing was already possible to change the human race forever as we know it.

Istvan told IBTimes UK: "I mean I have got friends that are trying to grow tails. I have friends that are literally trying to splice plant DNA into their own DNA so that they can go out in the sun and get energy into their cells directly from the sun, so they'd have photosynthesis capabilities."