YOu’ve been reading Keith Laumer. 
You make it sound like this is a baaad thing. 
And for all you people insisting that there is no rational seperation on a genus scale between humans and apes, I do agree. Just being snarky by pointing out that there are serious taxonomic schema out there that place the apes and humans in seperate geni. Chauvinists. 
Not to mention the elephant shrew, which is neither an elephant nor a shrew.
Is he a Ring-Tailed Laumer?
To hijack the thread in yet another direction, I surfed some on that Visual Evolution web page, and with a little practice, this lady could be a kick-ass guitar player.
You can’t tell from the pictures.
http://www.geocities.com/keithlaumer2002/
Usually such ‘deformities’ are amputated at, or shortly after, birth AIUI. Granted, most cases of polydactylia (I think that’s the term) involve partial, or non-functioning, digits. But it still seems like a bit of a Tyranny of the Norm.
BTW, as the OP, I have no objection to hijacks. As long as the mods don’t mind, take things wherever you want.
I think they’d have to be retractable. They’d moved independently and be very bendy, so they could be used to indicate emotions, like eyebrows.
Is it just me, or does anyone else find the mutations like tails and extra fingers a little…off-putting?
I dunno, I met a girl who had a thing for hooks.
I think polydactylia is extra fingers, not tails.
Tris
Indeed, Dr. Lector was polydactyl and had a finger removed, better to hide as a serial killer.
Indeed, and “extra fingers” is exactly what post #28 was talking about.
Well, who the heck wants to talk about fingers, in a thread about tails!
Then there’s the “butterfly”, which doesn’t taste so good on baked potatoes and doesn’t actually fly. It flutters. Or the “hippopotamus”, which is neither hip nor a horse.
The fish stick is neither a fish nor a stick. It is a fungus.
Finally we get to something important!
Hey, some of my favourite foods are fungi. Mmm, tasty foods grown in poo.