Why do humans have pubic hair, when other 鈥渉airless鈥� mammals, like pigs and elephants, manage without it? (continued)
Margaret Nelson
Ithaca, New York, US
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I am itching (so to speak) to add my two cents to the previous attempts to explain why Homo sapiens has such a spotty distribution of hairy bits (17 September & 15 October).
As a student of animal behaviour, it seems obvious to me that the distribution of hair in our armpits and pubic region has nothing whatever to do with providing protection from tall grass on the savannah and everything to do with pheromones and sexual selection.
Pubic hair is to humans as brilliant bottoms are to mandrill monkeys, and in our primitive state, it would have been highly visible and collecting a lot of interesting scents. Hairy armpits are clearly evolved to collect pheromones and, as we know, the sweat we secrete in our armpits is quite different to the sweat we secrete over the rest of our bodies. I don鈥檛 know for sure, but I would be willing to bet that the same is true for the sweat glands of our crotches. Being H. sapiens doesn鈥檛 distance us very far from the rest of the animals.
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