Why did humans lose most of their hair?

Question

Why did humans and hominids lose their fur?

Answer 1

We lost our hair because we evolved to have sweat glands. Sweat glands do not get along well with long hair. We are not the only species to have sweat glands and no long hair. Horses and cattle also have little hair and lots of sweat glands.

Answer 2

The answer is, we really don't know. Since time machines really don't exist any hypothesis we come up with as to why Natural Selection took a specific course, is simply a guess with a good story. Some stories just make more sense than others.

The first response does make a lot of sense given that humans did seem to evolve in a drier/hotter savanah climate than chimpanzees and that hair follicles do prevent the formation of sweat glands.

Answer 3

At some point it may have been an advantage to have less hair. My guess is that we experienced a considerable rise in temperature just prior to a cooler period (or to moving to cooler areas), where we might have started using hides, grass or bark to keep ourselves warm and dry. We might then have no longer needed to 'regrow' hair in order to stay warm, as well as the use of skins or vegetation for clothing making us more susceptible to infestation (lice?). Less hair might mean a louse-free body.

I suppose hairlessness might be also be more 'revealing', making a human with less hair sexier - as in more 'available'. At least when the hides are off.. After all, we are creatures with a highly developed visual system.

Answer 4

The most common explanation is to allow us to eliminate excess heat. Dogs and cats cannot sweat because of all their fur - they pant instead. Reduction in hair allows us to get rid of heat over almost all of our bodies. Interestingly enough, some scientists think bipedality (standing upright and walking on two feet) also evolved to reduce the amount of heat we absorb from the sun.

Answer 5

did you know that we actually have more hair on our bodies per square inch than aa chimp? we are still in the process of losing our hair. since we no longer need it it is getting finer and tends to fall out faster(hair goes into dormant stages of growth) thus giving us the appearance of less hair. this might be for a couple of reasons....one is since we are clothed it is not necessarily to have long thick fur though our ancestors proabably did not have real thick coats anyway since our origins are in africa. secondly perhaps hairy guys are not so attractive to girls(think back hair) thus they do not get to pass on their genes for being hairy (a major part of natural selection and the drivng force behind eolution). only that hair which aids in reproduction has tended to stay thick and long (head, arm. pit..pheromones, and gential regions(for fricition as well as pheromones)

Answer 6

Our planet got warmer 10000 years ago. And because of that we evolved to adapt to a warmer planet. One way was getting rid our our body hair. I have no body hair because my descendants came from the desert regions of this world. And Europeans have more hair because they are from the colder parts of the northern hemisphere.

Answer 7

Evolution. When humans started wearing clothes, eventually they lost their fur.

Answer 8

because fashion was invented. without clothes and fashion, i think we'll still be furred.

would you rather wear a different coat each time you go out or wear the same old look? that would be boring!