Why do humans have much less body hair than most mammals?
Show answer & explanation
Answer: Better sweat cooling
Better sweat cooling ✓ — Correct! One leading explanation is that less body hair let sweat evaporate more efficiently, helping early humans stay cooler during long activity in hot environments.
Better camouflage — Wrong. Camouflage matters for some animals, but it does not explain why humans evolved powerful sweating together with reduced body hair.
Faster muscle growth — Wrong. Muscle growth is not the main trade-off here. The bigger evolutionary clue is heat control.
More Evolution & Genetics questions
- Which of the following best describes a common change in RNA transcript length with age?
- Why do different organs in mammals show different gene activity patterns related to longevity?
- What can researchers learn about people of the same age from separate RNA-based aging clocks that estimate age from inflammation-related and metabolism-related gene activity?
- Aging RNA signals grouped into modules, not one score. What does a module view reveal?
- Why might aging mouse, monkey, and human cells show similar changes in the RNA they produce across different tissues?
- Why does a platypus still count as a mammal when it lays eggs and has no nipples?