colour of human?

Question

why is the colour of humans living near equator is dark for example the people who live in african countries but as we go away from the equator it starts to get fairer and fairer and fairer please explain

Answer 1

The Sun is stronger at the equator and dark skin is better at reflecting the harmful rays and thus cooling the body. It is a form of human adaptation and evidence of the theory of evolution since our bodies physically change to meet new circumstances.

Answer 2

I should imagine its a case of natural Selection at work again. The dark colour is caused by a pigment being laid down in the developing skin. This pigment, melanin, protects the skin by screening the harmful rays of the Sun. It is exactly the same as you tanning! In hot countries dark skinned people would tolerate the Sun more and be less likely to suffer from cancers or sunburn etc. In addition if you look at populations in warm countries they tend to be tall and thin. This allows them to lose more heat to the atmosphere and keeps them cooler. Celtic people like the Scots tend to be shorter and squatter for the exact opposite reason. They live in a cold region and want to retain as mush heat as possible. Their short, squat shape loses less heat than a tall, angular shape.

Answer 3

The darker skin colour means more melanin and it helps one to protect oneself from harmful UV rays. The lighter the skin, more damage by UV. So evolution tends to favour the darker colour for more survival and as there are more survivors of dark colour in the equator the whole population tends to be of that colour. Not to say there are no fair skinned people at all.....but darker coloured people adapt and manage well there.

Answer 4

All humans are in fact brown (with the exception of albinos).
The colour is caused by melanin. The more you have, the darker you are.

The fact that dark skinned people tend to live nearer the equator is down to natural selection. For example dark skinned people find it harder to produce enough vitamin B from sunlight in places with less sunlight.

It is nothing whatever to do with evolution.

Lots of detail here:
http://www.creationontheweb.com/images/pdfs/cabook/chapter18.pdf

Answer 5

Well historically (like early humans time), people near the equator encountered too much sun. So they evolved to have darker skin to block out some of the rays. As early humans moved closer to the poles, skin became lighter to recieve more rays to get essential viamin D

But now people just get tan

Answer 6

It's to do with the sun. People who have darker skin are generally in the countries that have more intense sunrays. It's a protection mechanism to stop our skin burning.

However, if a white person (i.e. myself minus the St.Tropez!! hehe!) were to relocate to Africa or somewhere for a decent period of time then I imagine not only would our skin get tanned but when we were to arrive back in the UK again the resistance of our skin would be greatly improved as our bodies would have got used to stronger rays.

Just the bodies way of adapting- it's amazing really- our bodies will adapt to many changes and it's their natural response to. They are extremely amazing machines. All to do with survival.

PS- That's why our bodies cling onto the chocolate bars and they head straight to our hips unfortunately!!!!

Answer 7

theres a pigment in the skin or something that doesnt allow sun rays to penetrate....white people dont have it because they dont need it, the more they live away from the equator where the sun is most intense.

thats why we have to be careful when we do go in the sun

Answer 8

the sun is more intense over the equator because it is more directly overhead than temperate climates. The sun rays produce melanin, a brown skin cell that you have a lot when you are tanned. The sun is more intense in equatorial areas so therefore, more sun, more heat on the skin, more melanin and darker skin!!!

Answer 9

A genetic adaptation due to the environment, survival of the species.
I would suspect there are several species of man, although the PC brigade would be in my face, all are equal but different, I honestly don't have sufficient information to be precise .

Answer 10

People living nearer equator produce more meloline to protect against sun s ultraviolet rays