Did you notice that among mammal we are the fur-less. What are significantly this characteristic in human evolution. Recently studies, The evolution of hairlessness helped to set the stage for the emergence of large brains and symbolic thought.
Among primates, humans are unique in having nearly naked skin. Every other member of our extended family has a dense covering of fur—from the short, black pelage of the howler monkey to the flowing copper coat of the orangutan—as do most other mammals. Yes, we humans have hair on our heads and elsewhere, but compared with our relatives, even the hairiest person is basically bare.
Before explain further, lets discuss what important of hairy body to mammal and how human adaption differ from another animal.Hair provides insulation and protection against abrasion, moisture, damaging rays of sunlight, and potentially harmful parasites and microbes. It also works as camouflage to confuse predators, and its distinctive patterns allow members of the same species to recognize one another. Furthermore, mammals can use their fur in social displays to indicate aggression or agitation: when a dog “raises its hackles” by involuntarily elevating the hairs on its neck and back, it is sending a clear signal to challengers to stay away.
Another mammal that hairless because of evolutionary adaptation. Such as the naked mole rat, hairlessness evolved as a response to living in large underground colonies, where the benefits of hair are superfluous because the animals cannot see one another in the dark and because their social structure is such that they simply huddle together for warmth. In marine mammals that never venture ashore, such as whales, naked skin facilitates long-distance swimming and diving by reducing drag on the skin’s surface.
Human hairlessness is not an evolutionary adaptation to living underground or in the water— the popular embrace of the so-called aquatic ape hypothesis notwithstanding.
Keeping cool is a big problem for many mammals, not just the giant ones, especially when they live in hot places and generate abundant heat from prolonged walking or running. These animals must carefully regulate their core body temperature because their tissues and organs, specifically the brain, can become damaged by overheating.
Mammals employ a variety of tactics to avoid burning up: dogs pant, many cat species are most active during the cooler evening hours, and many antelopes can off-load heat from the blood in their arteries to blood in small veins that has been cooled by breathing through the nose. But for primates, including humans, sweating is the primary strategy. Sweating cools the body through the production of liquid on the skin’s surface that then evaporates, drawing heat energy away from the skin in the process. This whole body cooling mechanism operates according to the same principle as an evaporative cooler (also known as a swamp cooler), and it is highly effective in preventing the dangerous overheating of the brain, as well as of other body parts.
Not all sweat is the same, however. Mammalian skin contains three types of glands—sebaceous, apocrine and eccrine—that together produce sweat. In most species, sebaceous and apocrine glands are the dominant sweat glands and are located near the base of hair follicles. Their secretions combine to coat hairs with an oily, sometimes foamy, mixture (think of the lather a racehorse generates when it runs). This type of sweat helps to cool the animal. But its ability to dissipate heat is limited. G. Edgar Folk, Jr., of the University of Iowa and his colleagues showed nearly two decades ago that the effectiveness of cooling diminishes as an animal’s coat becomes wet and matted with this thick, oily sweat. The loss of efficiency arises because evaporation occurs at the surface of the fur, not at the surface of the skin itself, thus impeding the transfer of heat. Under conditions of duress, heat transfer is inefficient, requiring that the animal drink large amounts of water, which may not be readily available. Fur-covered mammals forced to exercise energetically or for prolonged periods in the heat of day will collapse from heat exhaustion.
The human not sweat like other primates. Humans, in addition to lacking fur, possess an extraordinary number of eccrine glands—between two million and five million—that can produce up to 12 liters of thin, watery sweat a day. Eccrine glands do not cluster near hair follicles; instead they reside relatively close to the surface of the skin and discharge sweat through tiny pores. This combination of naked skin and watery sweat that sits directly atop it rather than collecting in the fur allows humans to eliminate excess heat very efficiently.
What are significant of the different adaption of human for heat regulation in the body The loss of most of our body hair and the gain of the ability to dissipate excess body heat through eccrine sweating helped to make possible the dramatic enlargement of our most temperature-sensitive organ, the brain. Whereas the australopithecines had a brain that was, on average, 400 cubic centimeters— roughly the size of a chimp’s brain—H.ergaster had a brain twice that large. And within a million years the human brain swelled another 400 cubic centimeters, reaching its modern size. No doubt other factors influenced the expansion of our gray matter—the adoption of a sufficiently caloric diet to fuel this energetically demanding tissue, for example. But shedding our body hair was surely a critical step in becoming brainy.
Again the naked adaptation of human just for increase brain ability, perhaps the explanation about the evolution of minds. Perhaps some evidence.
