Re: Infant Mortality and Bipedalism. Stage 1.

Domingo Martinez-Castilla (agdndmc@showme.missouri.edu)
Thu, 05 Dec 96 14:14:35 GMT

In article <01bbe1d5$81b7a340$062470c2@jdwaters.dircon.co.uk>, "John Waters" <jdwaters@dircon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>However, when infants have a high fever, their condition
>can be improved if their temperature can be brought down in
>some way. In this context, there would be an evolutionary
>advantage accruing to any infant which had less body hair,
>or more
>perspiration glands. These could help to lower the body
>temperature at times of high fever, and enable the infant
>to survive.

This sounds a lot like a neotenic adaptation to me. It would be interesting
to find out the studies of adaptations that have to do with neoteny. I will
look among some books. Perhaps Diamond has something in The Third Chimpanzee,
and from there we can start looking at his sources.

Regards,

Domingo.

Domingo Martinez Castilla
agdndmc@showme.missouri.edu