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Originally Posted by GenuineRisk
1.If I were going to wager a guess, i would say hair on the head needs to be longer and thicker in order to keep our head warm. It might also be an attracting a mate thing.
2.Why do horse's have long tail hair and not long body hair?
3.Colobus monkeys have long hair on their backs, but not on their bellies?
4.Why are porcupine's bellies soft? (Quills, after all, are just stiff hair)
I think if it's not necessary, Nature will eventually not use it, since it takes resources to grow hair.
5. Which is why, in the future, I wonder if people will have no eyebrows.
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1. Just puffy hair required to prevent the transfer of heat, hair that would hold air pockets when fluffed. Like most mammals in cold climate. Long hair might actually prevent this, especially straighter. The attracting the mate thing is usually done by one sex with one particular trait. Both sexes can grow long head hair.
2. From what I have observed, a long tail is quite handy in flicking unwanted insects away. I personally have been viciously swiped with horse hair. Probably because the horse knew I have flying insect tendencies... the pollen laden bumble bee dreams possibly.
3. Another profound question that you need to look into with your friend who works with them at the zoo. I think you said that before? the friend at the zoo.
4. They walk close to the ground. That would be very hard dragging those quills along the ground. And many species roll up into balls, protecting the soft underbelly becoming a terra firma sea urchin as it were. If they rolled into a ball with quills extended they might impale their own soft underbelly.
5. Eyebrows come in very handy as an extra shield from the sun. I think they are also useful in reading and giving facial expressions that are important for us social types of animals. And resource wise I dont think this costs a lot. And of course the gene or genes that might control this trait, might also control other useful traits, so it might not go away at all.
The probe continues GR. I thank you for your contributions so far (especially the article as I had not researched this and had never seen an attempt at an answer). I would hope other board members would join in this most noble quest for the truth about hair; transfer their energies from the sexual, to the curious. GR you have some training in the biological sciences, in populations anyhow?