Elephants’ Hair is Their Air Conditioner

A mammal's hair serves numerous functions such as providing insulation, protection for their skin from abrasions and damaging UV rays.   

In short epidermal hair is known to keep us warm in colder places. But is the reverse possible? According to the new study conducted by Conor Myhrvold and colleagues at Princeton University, the reverse of this occurs in elephants. The study states that, epidermal hair may have evolved to help the animals keep cool in the hot regions.

Elephants the terrestrial animals mostly reside in the hot climates.  For this reason elephants have the greatest need to maintain a constant body temperature.

This is the first study that highlights the fact that, animal hairs could play a role in heat dissipation.

A very popular concept in engineering is that low surface densities of hair can help dissipate heat. But the biological and evolutionary significance of light skin hair is not well known. 

For the study the authors focused on the effects of skin hair densities in Asian and African elephants and the thermoregulation in these animals. They noticed that elephant skin hair significantly improves their capacity to keep cool under different scenarios like higher daytime temperatures or less windy days.

The research states that dense body hair of furry animals helps with insulation, but as skin hair grows thinner. A point arrives in animals like elephants where skin hair begins to help release heat from the body rather than retain it.

Elie Bou-Zeid, corresponding author on the study, says "sparse hair increases heat dissipation from the skin of elephants and help the largest terrestrial mammal meet its thermoregulation needs."

The details of the study are being published in the Oct 10 in the open access journal PLOS ONE.