Shutterstock / Fons Vermeulen
Why aren’t humans covered in hair like other primates are?
David Muir
Edinburgh, UK
Under specific environmental conditions, natural selection picks the winners and losers. The winners’ genes are passed to future generations and the losers’ genes are lost to time. If the environment changes, what was previously a genetic disadvantage may quickly become a distinct advantage, and vice versa.
Other primates have hair that helps their thermoregulation, keeping them warm when temperatures drop. When their environment heats up, they don’t need to move around much, as they mainly eat plant foods that don’t run away.
When our hominin ancestors…
