Abstract

When you hear the word “tail,” what kind of tail comes to mind? Animals have tails of all shapes and sizes, but what purposes do they serve? And when, in the course of evolution, did humans lose their tails? This book offers an introduction to “tailology,” an interdisciplinary field that explores tails from a wide range of perspectives, transcending the boundaries between the humanities and the sciences.

Author’s Information

Sayaka Tojima was born in Osaka Prefecture in 1986. After graduating from the Faculty of Letters at Nara Women's University and obtaining a PhD in Science from the Graduate School of Science at Kyoto University, she worked as an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Science at Kyoto University, the Graduate School of Medicine at Osaka City University (now Osaka Metropolitan University), and a specially appointed assistant professor at the Hakubi Center at Kyoto University, before becoming an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Biology at Kyoto Institute of Technology in the spring of 2025. Her specialty is tails. Her publications include "Tail Studies" (Kobunsha) and "Archaeology for 13-Year-Olds: Why Don't Humans Have Tails? - A Story of Two Losses" (Shinsensha).