Small animals are more susceptible to cold than large animals, so they need fur to stay warm. The proof is that rats have hair but elephants do not.
Based on the study of evolution, we know that humans also once had thick fur. However, how they gradually disappear is still an inexplicable mystery.
Human ancestors experienced many major changes in the Earth’s climate. The planet is getting warmer every day, which means that people have to go farther and farther to find food.
Archaic expert Dr Nina Jablonski believes that having less hair made it easier for our ancestors to cool down . This favorable mechanism made the archaic humans able to travel longer distances, earning more food.
The theory of evolution says we have a common ancestor with chimpanzees. (Photo: Shutter).
The evolutionary turning point worked, meaning they lived longer and longer to reproduce. Similar to us today, the children of our ancestors were born, inheriting the characteristic of less hairy bodies from their parents.
All mammals (warm-blooded animals) have body hair, which protects the skin from sunlight and minor damage. However, each animal possesses different hair types for different reasons.
Coat color is useful for animals like kangaroos or dingoes. It can help the animal to be less detected, hiding easily from predators. Or if they are predators, the color of their fur helps to hide to stalk their prey more effectively.
Having less hair made it easier for our ancestors to cool down. (Image: Getty).
Most animals need fur for sun protection, but some animals that live underground, like naked mole rats, don’t because they get very little exposure to the sun.
Animals living in the water such as dolphins, whales, … have almost no hair to limit swimming difficulties.
Fur helps keep the body warm and is especially useful in cold areas . Living in the freezing cold waters near the North Pole, sea otters are among the warmest animals in the world.
Small animals are more susceptible to cold than large animals, so they need fur to stay warm. The proof is that rats have hair but elephants do not.
The color of the lion’s coat makes it easy for them to track their prey. (Image: Wikipedia).
Smaller animals keep warm less, which explains why smaller primates like monkeys often have thicker hair like chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans, which are larger in size. But this does not explain why human hair is so smooth and short. Therefore, there are still many questions scientists cannot answer.
When the hair is shed, there is nothing left to protect our skin from the sun. This leads to people starting to have darker skin because dark skin shields the body from the sun better than light skin.
Geneticist Alan Rogers estimates that the gene for dark skin appeared just over a million years ago. So this may be the time when our ancestors shed their body hair.