A tail whip as surprise element would definitely be awesome (although I had something like a kanagroo kick in mind when first saw them) but I was more talking about general melee behavior.
The current melee combat behavior is just quite underwhelming in comparison to the awesome range vs. range combat (As I already said in my [112 feedback post] (Update 112 now live! Creatures and Characters (and a Q&A)) , the fighting AI is really impressive for Voxel standards) but I think thats fine since this game is still in early alpha. I just wanted to mention it and simultaniously make a suggestion how it could be fixed.
Cant wait to see the reworked spitter late 2016 