Re: Elaine Morgan OBE

As Elaine Morgan notes, just about every other hairless creature -
apart from the mole rat - was likely aquatic at the time it became
hairless. John Savard

Marc wrote:
I don't know if Elaine ever said that, but the statement is not correct:
newborn nestlings are naked, newborn marsupials in the pouch are naked, the
constantly subterranean naked molerats, all full aquatics are naked: if
there's uninterrupted friction from various directions (nest, pouch, soil,
water), mammals & birds tend to become naked. Nestlings get feathers or fur
when they start to come out of the nest.
As expected, the reverse does not hold, eg, some very big tropical
non-fully-aquatic mammals are also furless, eg, most rhinos, hippos &
elephants are furless ("pachyderms"), but not so giraffes.

Elaine replies:
I did say it and still say it. I will amend it if you like to "just about
every other mammal that remains hairless on reaching maturity was likely
aquatic or semi-aquatic at the time it became naked."
None of the other objections hold. The molerats were specifically excepted.
The hippo is semi-aquatic, the elephant is now acknowledged to have had
aquatic ancestors, and speculation about the rhino is being actively
pursued. I never claimed that bits of the pelage of other mammals never get
rubbed off. -Elaine

I fully agree, Elaine: frequently burrowing tropical medium-sized mammals
also tend to have reduced fur: aardvark, wrat hog, hyena dog.

--Marc




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