Where's our fur?

This article might help you with the answer.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/65232.php

The title of your question made me LOL for a minute. My nickname for my boyfriend is “The Fur”. :)

Here is another theory from a recent Scientific American article.

I think that the hypothesis in the second article is more likely.

As a member of an Italian family, I’d say we still have lots of fur.

Can someone just explain it in their own words in laymen terms, please?

Mine gets caught in the bathtub drain when I shower.

I agree with @marinelife. The first article didn’t have any supporting details. In my own words regarding @bkcunningham – We had an ever-decreasing need for the fur and so our bodies gradually stopped growing it. Increased activity leading to higher body temperatures and a necessity for a cooling system (sweat glands) is theorized to have added to this change.

re: We had an ever-decreasing need for the fur and so our bodies gradually stopped growing

Evolution does not work that way

Increased activity leading to higher body temperatures and a necessity for a cooling system (sweat glands) is theorized to have added to this change.

Yes, evolution works that way.

If a trait decreases your chances of having kids, that trait can disappear with those who carry it.

If a trait increases your chances of having kids, that trait persists.

The Aquatic Ape idea is pretty interesting.

@laureth ..has it right, on this one.

@bkcunningham I’ll try.

Ahem.

Man wasn’t descended from apes, science says we share a common ancestor. Therefore, it is safe to assume that if we were descended from that ancestor, then apes needed fur and humans didn’t, so the furred humans and the furless apes died out. Why the apes needed fur and us not, I don’t know.

(As a side note, I don’t think that we were descended from something else. Even though ape’s DNA and ours only differ by a few percent [some say 5%, some say 2%], If 5% of the DNA is different, this amounts to 150,000,000 DNA base pairs that are different between them! Even if it’s only 2%, that’s still 60,000,000 base pairs that are different. That’s a lot!)

@Math321

“Man wasn’t descended from apes, science says we share a common ancestor. ”

Just to clarify.

We are not descended from any ape that is still alive today. However, that last common ancestor, should we see it today, is something we would assuredly call an ape. So we did evolve from an ancestor that was an ape, and did have hair.