Beware My Stinger Tail



"It counters a Zangoose's dazzling agility with its swordlike tail, which also oozes a horrible poison."

- Pokémon Emerald Version's Pokédex, on Seviper

A tail is used for things like balance or grasping objects. Another use is a weapon, which can vary from flailing, whipping, or crushing. It is only logical then that a combatant would add things to make their tail hit harder like a club. Why just hit when you can also shoot stuff or stab with a stinger on the end, which may or may not be poisonous? This trope is about weapons on tails, be they Natural Weapon or not.

Part of the Anatomy Arsenal.

Anime and Manga

 * Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann has Adiane, who once used her scorpion-like tail to deliver a vicious beating unto Viral. It's unclear whether her stinger contains venom, since she does most of her fighting from within a giant robot.
 * Cell from Dragonball Z, who introduces a horrifying twist. After stabbing someone with his tail, he actually sucks up all of their internal organs through his stinger, while they're still alive.
 * One of the first villains in the second arc of New Cutey Honey had an acid-spewing tail.
 * A number of Zoids also have guns mounted in their tails, and not just the Scorpion-based ones.
 * The most notable one of course is on a Scorpion-Zoid: The Charged Particle Gun of the Death Stinger.
 * Another notable example would be the two main "sniper" zoids, the GunSniper and Snipe Master; both resemble dromeosaurs (raptors), with the tail forming the barrel of the primary sniping weapon.
 * Sasorina from Heartcatch Pretty Cure
 * Mihiramon from Digimon Tamers has an attack that can transform his tail into a sansetsukon.
 * In The Tower of Druaga, the Big Bad uses his tail in a surprise attack that.
 * Sasori from Naruto, whose fighting style is to fight from inside a puppet like a suit of armor. The first puppet he is seen in has a sharp tail coated in poison.
 * While his actual "body" lacks an actual tail, it is also designed to invoke the scorpion imagery - the role of a tail is filled by a long cable winded inside his stomach and ending with a poisoned spike

Comic Books

 * The Scorpion from Spider-Man. Stegron too, who's very ineffective with it.
 * Manticore from the terrorist-for-hire group the Jihad in Suicide Squad.

Fan Fiction

 * Succubae tails in The Return have a host of mono-filaments at the end that can be used in battle like a biological Chainsaw Good.

Film

 * In Alien S, the Alien Queen uses her tail as a weapon while on board the Sulaco.
 * In Dragonheart, Draco's tail ends in a barb.
 * Dren in Splice has one of these.
 * Men in Black: the Bug is a gigantic interstellar cockroach with a lethal stinger in its tail.
 * In Rango, Rattlesnake Jake, is a rattlesnake, which opts for a gatling gun instead of a traditional rattle tail.
 * The Scorpion King, but only in The Mummy Returns.
 * The Stegosaurus in Fantasia.
 * A Stegosaurus attempts this in the second Jurassic Park film too, naturally.

Literature

 * Animorphs: Andalites and their super-fast scythe tails.
 * Piers Anthony's Xanth novel "A Spell For Chameleon". The manticora has the tail of a scorpion (and is featured on the [[media:A_Spell_For_Chameleon_cover.jpg|cover]]).
 * Redwall: Cluny the Scourge.
 * In Spellsinger, the gatekeeper of Polistrindu is an intelligent beaver, whose personal armament includes a spiked metal plate that turns his flat tail into an intimidating weapon.
 * Naturally becomes a worry in The Magic School Bus book where the teacher shrinks the class and sends them into a beehive.
 * Chimeras are one of the confirmed magical beasts of the Harry Potter setting.

Live Action TV

 * In That Mitchell and Webb Look, not the Armored Scorpion of Death. Its tail simply fires "helpful bullets".
 * Scorpina in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers has a deadly tail capable of electrocution in her giant, monstrous form.
 * Dragonzord also has a drill on the end of its tail.
 * The slashers on Terra Nova have tails tipped with hard, serrated blades that they wield like whips.
 * Merlin had the Manticore, a creature of legend, and the serkets, giant scorpions, both with stinger tails.
 * A hypothetical species of predator with a pair of stinger-tails appeared on an alien life-themed episode of Into The Universe With Stephen Hawking.
 * Young Hercules gives the hydra a spiked tail.

Oral Tradition

 * Thanks in no small part to Mix and Match Critters, many mythical and legendary creatures are described as having barbed, spiked, or otherwise dangerous tails.
 * Some go so far as to have a snake for a tail.

Tabletop Games

 * In some versions of Dungeons and Dragons dragons could use their tails as weapons (usually to hit creatures directly behind them).
 * Wyverns have a stinger with very strong poison.
 * So do giant scorpions.
 * Purple worms too.
 * Wyverns (again) in one of the previous versions of Warhammer. A wyvern who was slain could make one last Taking You With Me attack with the stinger before it fell.
 * Likewise, the 4th Edition Carnifex in Warhammer 40000 has either a scythe or mace tail upgrade option. The difference? The scythe tail has 1-3 (relatively) weak attacks; the mace tail has one strong attack.
 * Both attacks can only be used if there's enough enemies around, too.
 * The "Tsunami" Dragon Borg in Rifts has a particle-beam cannon for a tail.
 * A common form of Striker in GURPS.
 * The villain Ankylosaur from Champions is a man wearing powered armor with a Grenade Launcher in his tail.

Toys

 * Bionicle is the Trope Namer, based on a Memetic Mutation quote ostensibly from a Vorox on its website. Besides the Vorox, we also have the Nui-Rama, Nui-Kopen, Nui-Jaga, Kofo-Jaga, Kinloka, Krahli, Zivon, Hydruka, Zesk, and Skopio (and Skopio XV-1).

Video Games

 * Final Fantasy VII has The Guard Scorpion of Midgar's Sector 1 Mako Reactor. Attack while its tail is up, and it will tear you a new arse.
 * Many Notorious Monster Species in Final Fantasy XI have special attack for players who get hate from behind, such as Behemoth with "Kick Out", Hydra with "Serpentine Tail", and Khimaira with "Plague Swipe". But the absolute kings of this trope are the Wyrms with Spike Flail which is virtually an Instant Death Radius for the Alliance fighting the mob if someone pulled hate from behind, or for anyone who happens to be near by in the case of certain powerful monsters like Nidhogg.
 * One boss from The Legend of Zelda a Link To T He Past, the Helmasaur King, can attack with its spike tail.
 * The Lizalfos in The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess tie sharp things to their tails. In The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword you can collect them after you kill them for use in item upgrades.
 * Succubi from Disgaea can attack with their tail, draining hit points.
 * The first stage in disabling Final Fantasy X 2's Vegnagun is destroying its vicious tail. Its attack is called Noli Mi Tangere.
 * Vertigo in Primal Rage.
 * Tail attacks are commonly given to Xenomorphs in Alien vs. Predator games as well.
 * Dizzy's tail in Guilty Gear games.
 * Trypticon in Transformers War for Cybertron uses his enormous tail for both projectile attacks (two rows of cannons along the underside fire at you when he has it curled up over himself) and physical attacks (slamming his tail down on one side of the stage, you have to get out of the way AND jump to avoid taking damage).
 * The giant scorpion boss from God of War III can attack with its sting.
 * Castlevania: Dawn Of Sorrow had two souls you could get that allowed your character to grow a tail. It would strike whenever you attacked for an additional hit.
 * In the Don Pachi series, Hibachi, the eponymous Angry Boss Bee can shoot Eleventy Billion bullets at you from her stinger and shoot the stinger itself and then pull it back with a chain that also shoots bullets.
 * The Skorp Badnik from Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Charmy from latter games, being a bee.
 * Most dragon bosses in World of Warcraft do this in some manner.
 * One of the possible monster powers available in Crush Crumble and Chomp
 * In The Legend Of Spyro, Cynder has a metal blade at the end of her tail that can be used as a weapon in various ways, including inbueing it with her Poison element. Being she's the only Black Dragon shown, it's unknown if this is simply natural or something Malefor had done to her.
 * A few Pokémon attacks, most obvious being Seviper's poison tail.
 * Most Wyverns and other types of monsters in Monster Hunter can and will smack you with their tails. The Rathian and Rathalos can even poison you with theirs like the Wyvern of legend. Luckily, you can usually cut the tails of most monsters off, greatly reducing their effectiveness (or range, at the least).
 * You'd better beware the Radscorpion's stinger tail!
 * Bug! had the eponymous character, who defeated his enemies by jumping on them with his stinger tail. There were also literal army ants that fired grenades out of their stingers, as well as scorpions (who rarely used their tail, preferring to attack with their claws instead).
 * Black Scorpion from City of Heroes has one of these, as his name would imply. His tail is used for firing energy beams, not stinging, though.
 * Dark Souls has beast-based enemies that use their tails to knock the player off their feet, and deal significant damage if there is a weapon attached to the tail. Said tail can usually be cut off and collected as a rare weapon...
 * Which makes the optional killing of the cute dragon girl and cutting off her really short tail very cruel and violent.
 * Ridley from the Metroid games definitely has this. As do Kanden, the War Wasps and the Ki Hunters.
 * Tail eaters from the Dragon Quest games, as well as mad hornets.
 * The worms and arrowheads from Monster Rancher have extendable stings.
 * Giant Scorpions wander the Shapeir desert in Quest for Glory 2, and are deadly combatants, the second-toughest random monsters you can fight. Their tails are particularly deadly: when it starts to shake, you'd better either run away, prepare to dodge, or prepare to die, as a single strike will kill you no matter how many health points you have left. Poison cure pills can make you temporarily immune to the scorpion's tail strike, but due to the way the game is coded, it will always wear off when the stinger starts to shake, making the pills functionally useless.
 * Dantes Inferno: Horny Devils from the Lust Circle have deadly scorpion tails. Just not in the usual place...

Web Comics

 * Invoked in one of The Perry Bible Fellowship's crueler moments.
 * There are a couple of Dawn of Time strips involving barbed stegosaurus tails.
 * One of the alternate universe Kin from Goblins is half-scorpion instead of half-snake. She goes on at length about how her armored, razor sharp, venomous tail is superior to "our" Kin's fleshy, soft, weaponless tail.

Western Animation

 * Family Guy had an episode with a talking bee (who sounds Camp Gay), which warns people about its stinger. It accidentally stings itself (somehow...) later in the episode, and dies.
 * Sounds like they read Shermans Lagoon.
 * Every incarnation of Scorponok.
 * Quickstrike goes one step further, having a cobra in place of his tail.
 * In Ben 10, one of Ben's original aliens, Stinkfly, has a sharp spiked tail that can cut through metal with ease.
 * Batman the Brave And The Bold: In "Cry Freedom Fighters!", the Supreme Chairman's battle suit includes a stinger tail.
 * Siege from the Mighty Ducks cartoon has a club on his tail.
 * Felix the Cat's tail sometimes serves as this, seeing as it can do pretty much anything. In an episode of The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat, he turns it into a mallet and smashes his alarm clock with it.
 * Zok of The Herculoids is a dragon that can shoot stuff from its tail

Other

 * There's a small group of fans who like Tailmouths, which are literally humanoid people with 'mouths' in their tail, which is according to them Fetish Fuel material (Not always though, sometimes it's just for the sake of coolness). Unfortunately, there aren't that many tropes for them, so you gotta look real hard.

Real Life

 * Many prehistoric creatures, perhaps most famously Ankylosaurus and Stegosaurus.
 * The Other Wiki has a subtrope of this as "Thagomizer" (taken from The Far Side).
 * Gyptodonts, giant armadillos with clubs at the end of their tails.
 * Some bees, wasps, and ants can spray formic acid from the end of their abdomens.
 * Including one of the most dangerous flying insects in the world, the Asian Giant Hornet.
 * Stingrays. A peaceful fish, but bothering it is a very bad idea. Depending on the species, may have a spike up to 40 cm long stabbing with force enough to pierce a wooden boat's bottom.
 * Those pretty blue or yellow tangs seen in saltwater aquariums? They get their name from the "tangs" protruding from the hilt of a dagger, because they have retractable spines on each side of their tails that they use to discourage pursuing predators. As do their cousins, the surgeonfishes.
 * And Dory is one of them!
 * Scorpions, of course.
 * Porcupines defend themselves by turning their backs on and lashing their spine-filled tails in the predator's face.
 * Thematically similar are aircraft tail gunners, much more common in WWII bombers but still extant in modern Soviet bombers, to fight off chasing fighters. Descriptions of them often reference them as the "stinger in the tail".