tauntedoctopuses replied to your photo “A Terran plot to lure Gul Garak away from Intendant Kira and leave her…”

those tails are LOOOOOONG. Like, almost twice the length of body long.

Yep! Unfortunately it’s hard to see because Cardassians are so bloody big I never have enough paper to draw a WHOLE Cardassian, but they all have really long tails! Even the shortest of Cardassian tails will still be the entire length of the body long. Usually it’s probably more like 1.2x-1.5x. Approaching 2x is something more common in Cardassians whose body type I’ve taken to describing as “noodles”, such as Dukat.

Their tails are very very important to them. They are prehensile, and whatever-the-word-for-dexterous-would-be-when-applied-to-tails. They are used for balance, when a Cardassian is bipedal - which, whilst not their natural locomotion, is still something they did even before they became space-faring. It just helped to free up the forelimbs so they could use those for other things. They are used for climbing and gripping - whilst much of Cardassia is desert, there are also caverns, jungles, mountains and volcanoes, etc, and Cardassians are from all these places. It’s also used for navigating, a Cardassian tail will always sweep the area behind it, and in this way they remain aware of their environment. Speaking of, it’s also used for attacking and defending. Swiping their tail alone would kill most things provided the Cardassian was sufficiently heavier than what they were attacking. If Tain smacked a human in the face with his tail, the damage from the scales and the force would be so great that it would be unlikely the human ever gets back up again. He couldn’t do that with his arms. And of course Cardassians have weaponised their tails, wearing their military stingers on the ends, which they can manipulate with extreme precision.

So Cardassians have long tails! In general, Cardassians are extremely long, you may have noticed that the distance between their forelimbs and hindlimbs is quite a bit bigger than you’d expect it to be if you were looking at a human. They’re long and flexible for wiggly climbing. But their tails are especially important. They have more power/muscle, dexeterity, and often precision, in their tails than they do all four of their legs.

A hatchlings tail is one of the areas that develops as quickly as possible. Their little weak legs can do little but carry the Cardassian even once they’re fully developed, but those tails are a huge part of how they will experience the world. Whilst their little talons cling to Bashir, they’ll be exploring the world around them with their tails, just like how a human baby might flail their hands around to touch things.