Why do humans not have fur like chimpanzees or gorillas?

We know that humans once had thick fur! But for some reason we lose it.

Scientists believe that human ancestors (millions of years ago) experienced a huge climate event. The Earth is extremely hot, which means people have to start making further journeys to find food.

Dr. Nina Jablonski, an American expert on ancient humans, said that the low-feathered individuals can maintain good shape for long distances because they can keep their body temperature cool.

Picture 1 of Why do humans not have fur like chimpanzees or gorillas?

All mammals have hair on their bodies.

So, with less hair, it means you'll be able to go on long journeys, earning more food. If you have too much hair, you can only walk a short distance before being tormented by the heat, which means finding less food and facing hunger.

Moreover, people with fewer hairs are individuals who live long enough to have children. And just like how you own the same eye color or hair as your parents, the babies born also inherit less hair from the previous generation. That's why today you no longer see people with thick fur like animals.

All mammals (warm-blooded animals) have fur on their bodies, which helps protect the skin from sunlight. Each animal has different hair types for a variety of reasons , such as:

  • The coat color can be very useful for animals like Kangaroo and Dingo because it can make these animals hard to see. So they are easier to hide from predators and to stalk prey.
  • Most animals need fur to protect themselves from the sun, but others, such as the shrews, always live on the ground without hair because they do not need to be protected from the sun.
  • Whales and dolphins, marine mammals, have almost no hair because it will be difficult to swim if the body is covered by it.
  • The fur can keep the body warm, very beneficial in icy lands. Sea otters are one of the warmest fur species in the world because they live in extremely cold waters near the North Pole.
  • Small animals like mice will get very cold easily, so the fur plays a very important role. But if they are large animals like elephants, they may not need much support from the fur.

Picture 2 of Why do humans not have fur like chimpanzees or gorillas?

The fur can keep the body warm, very beneficial in icy lands.

Keeping warm is usually easy with larger animals, which may explain why small primates like monkeys tend to be thicker than their larger cousins ​​like chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans. orang.

Do you know?

When losing body hair, there will be no protection for our skin from the sun. People in ancient times may have lost their thick fur along with the time they began to own darker skin (because dark skin protects their body from the sun better than pale skin. ).

Geneticist Alan Rogers estimates that the gene for darkening skin has only been around for more than a million years . So perhaps this is the time when human ancestors abandoned their fur .

Update 20 May 2020
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