• Question: Why are we not covered in fur and have skin?

    Asked by meg123 to Amy, Karen, Sarah, Vijay, Will on 19 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Karen Reed

      Karen Reed answered on 19 Jun 2012:

      Meg – another good question. Its essentially down to evolution and selection for no fur. but why select for no fur???

      There’s actually papers published about this – http://www.stonepages.com/news/archives/002322.html.

      Its thought that in Stone Age societies the mother of a newborn had to decide whether she had the resources to nurture her baby. The newborn’s appearance probably influenced whether the mother kept or abandoned it. An attractive baby was more likely to be kept and reared. and its thought Stone Age people believed that hairless babies were more attractive than hairy ones – so lack of fur was selected for.
      Info taken from

      I suspect there may be other explainations as well.

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