Lilmod,
1. OK. A halachic statement can be metaphoric.
2. The way it is told is not that she had a tail in a metaphoric sense
Froggie, Rambam says some very sharp things about people who think that the aggadatot a literal and believe the literal meanings. Do you also think that Moshe was ten amot (approx. five meters) tall and that Og was similarly large? “John Wass, a specialist in acromegalic gigantism at the University of Oxford, reckons it would be impressive to survive for long if you grew taller than 9ft.
First, high blood pressure in the legs, caused by the sheer volume of blood in the arteries, can burst blood vessels and cause varicose ulcers. An infection of just such an ulcer eventually killed Wadlow.
With modern antibiotics, ulcers are less of an issue now, and most people with acromegalic gigantism eventually die because of complications from heart problems. “Keeping the blood going round such an enormous circulation becomes a huge strain for the heart,” says Wass.” (from the Guardian).
Do you believe that Yehoshua literally made the Sun stand still (really the Earth as it is the one that rotates)? Everything not firmly connected to the bedrock would have been thrown off by the centrifugal force.