Why Are Humans Relatively Hairless?

Our closet primate relatives -and most mammals, for that matter- are covered with fur. How did humans go hairless? And why do we have hair in the few places we do? This TED Ed lesson from Nina G. Jablonski fills us in on what we know and don't know about the way human hair evolved. -via Digg

Comments (3)

Just as Pokemon, we evolved to have less hair. Though it does beg the question: if humans are evolving, how come 99% of people at walmart definitely not evolved. And how come I have a bad back from genetics coming from both my mom and dads side. It would've been nice for evolution to evolve us out of that at some point. But I digress, evolution is real and believe you me - it is awesome.

Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)

1 reply

It's easy to see that humans - like so many species - grow more hair on their bodies as they age, so our having less hair than most mammals would seem to be a clear case of neoteny, the retention of childhood traits into adulthood. Neoteny is quite common in humans, like adults who believe in Santa, Satan, or Trump.

Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)

Login to comment.

Click here to access all of this post's 3 comments