Melenas, manes, animales peludos. Maned animals

 Humans are peculiar in this respect, very long manes in the head and upper back part of the neck. At least for some years, we all kow balding is an important issue in our species.

Why do we have these weird mops of hair in the head, and moustaches and beards (mostly in men), and, yes, why do we have thicker and longer clumps in the underarm, genitalia and some near zones?

We can only speculate and I'm not going deeper in this post, leaving the matter from another moment, and just telling we do have a hair issue which embarrasses us very often, when not making us uncomfortable and wanting to keep it as invisible as possible (hence the flourishing business of hair removal).

Just wanted to explore the concept "manes" in other animals, mainly mammals, so let's take a look:

Sumatran rhino are born quite hairy, at least for the standards of (extant) rhinos. However our chances of seeing these beautiful and yes, tender looking rhinos are thinning the way these manes thin in their adult life, because of these species is very threatened by extinction:

"
With fewer than 80 left in the world, this species’ fate is at a tipping point. After decades of poaching and habitat loss, the few remaining Sumatran rhinos are separated into small populations, making it difficult to find mates. The species is Critically Endangered, meaning that it faces an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild"
https://www.savetherhino.org/asia/indonesia/working-together-to-save-the-sumatran-rhino/

 
Maned wolf. Not so maned as lion is, but not bald at all.

Wolves of the World

Sloths have a dense coat of thick long hair specially in their backs, and, wait, its natural direction is pointing to their back. An inverse maned sloth.

1242215. Maned Sloth (Bradypus torquatus) portrait, Atlantic Forest, Bahia, Brazil

 

Giraffes:

 

Giraffes grow a thicker and stiffer line of hair in their long necks, in the same fashion horses do (despite belonging to a different branch of hervibores)

 

Some breeds of cows explored the concept of fringe:

 

But, let's face it, sheeps have gone further:

 

And, well, we all just know that horses and relatives as well as lion males and cheetah cubs exhibit some sort of mane.

 

However, let's take a look to our evolutive cousins:

 

 

 

 

 

It very much seems that playing with the possibilities of thicker and longer clumps of hair in different parts of their face is a constant for (let's stick with the colloquial term) monkeys. So it could, in part, explain why it was so genetically easy to acquire these features in humans. But... underarms an other parts deserve a more complicate explanation.