Barbery Apes

[pseudomonas]

Is there any other mammal that has as enthusiastically stupid a distribution of hair as humans? Almost bald all over with a daft patch or two on top that can approach half the total body length seems pretty crazy to me. I guess a horse's tail is nearly as silly, but I think the humans still win that one.

Comments

[tig_b]

Most of us have hair over the rest of our bodies, but it's usually very fine and short.

Thicker hair on the head also helps protect from sunlight.

I've read a piece that suggests men's tendency to got bald past their 30s wasn't selected against, because most early men died before then!

[pseudomonas]

Oh, I know we have hair over the rest of our bodies, and a certain amount of hair on the head makes sense - but I'd expect maybe an inch or so of hair, like that which serves to protect and insulate most other animals. The head hair we have is longer than that of yaks.

[cosmolinguist]

And things that happen after animals have passed their genes along (which a lot of guys will have by the time they're balding) don't matter so much to evolution anyway.