Thursday, October 11, 2012
Skin Hair Skims Heat Off Elephants
Body hair in mammals is typically thought to have evolved to keep us warm in colder prehistoric times, but a new study suggests that it may do the opposite, at least in elephants. Epidermal hair may have evolved to help the animals keep cool in the hot regions they live in. Elephant skin hair significantly enhances their capacity to keep cool under different scenarios like higher daytime temperatures or less windy days. As skin hair grows sparser, a tipping point is reached where, for animals such as elephants, skin hair begins to help release heat from the body rather than retain it. Elephants have the greatest need for such heat loss to maintain a constant body temperature, since they are large terrestrial mammals that live in hot climates. Their results are the first to suggest that animal hairs could play a role in heat dissipation that could be beneficial to certain animals, like elephants.Sparse hair increases heat dissipation from the skin of elephants and help the largest terrestrial mammal meet its thermoregulation needs. A solution to this is keep the elephants in a location where that doesn't happen to them. Another idea for a solution is the elephants may be able to take some medicine to keep their hair from thinning and hair loss. Barriers to those solutions are the cost and transportation. My personal opinion is the problem can be fixed but what is the cost.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121010172120.htm
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I would have never thought hair on an animal could keep it cool. I only thought hair could keep an animal warm.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteTheres not alot we realy could do with that. It'd be very costly just running around to give the elephants their medicine.
ReplyDeleteEven though it could possibly harm the elephants, it is their hair. They must have it for a reason and even though it is making them lose heat, everything happens for a reason. After reading the article I still don’t understand how having hair could make the elephants cold. I don’t think we should interfere with the elephants’ biological make-up. Also, it would be really hard to give every single elephant in an area medicine. Just leave it alone and let nature do the rest. If we try to interfere with them we might make the situation worse than it already is.
ReplyDeleteCost is such a huge issue and it's probably one of are big barriers. Maybe in a few years we can figure out what we need to do help elephants along with other animals.
ReplyDeleteThat is so strange that the hair on the elephant is actually cooling them down. But then again, its not like they have thick hair to warm them. Their hair is thin which will also contribute to the cooling of the animal. I don't think we should interfere with this problem, this is how the elephant was made to operate and it will work itself out.
ReplyDelete