Lanugo Hair | Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny (CARTA)

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Human Uniqueness Compared to "Great Apes":

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Lanugo Hair is a fine, soft wooly kind of hair that grows all over the human fetus and is typically shed just before birth and replaced afterwards by regular hair. Interestingly, lanugo hair is also found on some other new-born mammals such as seals and elephants, which like humans, do not have a lot of body hair as adults. Lanugo hair can also reappear in the uniquely human condition of serious anorexia nervosa. In contrast, great apes are born with a considerable amount of regular hair. Do great apes have lanugo hair in an earlier stage of embryogenesis?

Timing

Timing of appearance of the difference in the Hominin Lineage as a defined date or a lineage separation event. The point in time associated with lineage separation events may change in the future as the scientific community agrees upon better time estimates. Lineage separation events are defined in 2017 as:

the Last Common Ancestor (LCA) of humans and old world monkeys was 25,000 - 30,000 thousand (25 - 30 million) years ago
the Last Common Ancestor (LCA) of humans and chimpanzees was 6,000 - 8,000 thousand (6 - 8 million) years ago
the emergence of the genus Homo was 2,000 thousand (2 million) years ago
the Last Common Ancestor (LCA) of humans and neanderthals was 500 thousand years ago
the common ancestor of modern humans was 100 - 300 thousand years ago

Definite Appearance:

100 thousand years ago

References

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