• Question: How /why are certain animals born without fur ??

    Asked by Chloeg32 to Chris, Joanne, Kathryn, Kieran, Sarah on 9 Nov 2017. This question was also asked by 979furk43.
    • Photo: Sarah Guerin

      Sarah Guerin answered on 9 Nov 2017:

      Well, evolution has decided that animals that have the most fur need the most fur- polar bears for example have really thick fur because they live in really cold areas. Humans have less fur/hair because we have evolved to live in a safer environment. Animals are born without fur/with little fur, because they have been kept warm in their mother’s womb/eggs until then. They then grow fur if they need to.

    • Photo: Chris Werner

      Chris Werner answered on 9 Nov 2017:

      Evolution and natural selection! As humans evolved in Africa, they lost their hair/fur to keep cool. Great example is the difference between the elephant and the wooly mammoth. The mammoth lived at a time and in places where it was very cold, the ice age, whereas African and Indian elephants have very little hair.

      Some animals don’t have fur mainly because that’s how they’ve evolved to regulate their body heat. Reptiles like lizards and snakes for example don’t grow fur!

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