What are Some Mammals with Very Short Hair?
Most of the 5,400 mammal species are covered with enough hair that it is thick enough to be called “fur” — both marsupials and placentals are usually covered with a conspicuous layer of fur, which helps keep them warm. Obvious examples are kangaroos, mice, bears, cats, and dogs. Some mammals have hair so short, that when you look at them from a distance, it isn’t noticeable. Only when you look at them close is it apparent that these are just mammals with very short hair. Examples of mammals with very short hair include elephants, rhinoceroses, cetaceans (whales and relatives), the naked mole rat, and us humans. In particular, humans being among the mammals with very short hair has caused no small amount of controversy, with some creationists claiming that the human absence of long hair is evidence that we were created by God as a fundamentally different entity than the rest of the animal kingdom. Even to evolutionary biologists, the reasons why hair gets so short that it practically di
