>>14398137I think the real Q is the second one, why didn't other animals lose their fur? I think some did, like elephants are probably descendent from a furry animal that lost it. Much of the megafauna does not have fur, neither do humans. It seems like they, and we, had to deal with having much more heat than other animals.
Sub-Saharan Africa is a very diverse place, to the extent that a lot of geographers dislike the term these days (for reasons besides >muh racism whining). Where exactly are you talking about? Lots of furred creatures, like say gorillas, would be in the dense jungles or even in highland mountains. Even if it's "hot", they're in constant shade and the fur has added benefits like protection from brush and poison. Humans are especially weak to poison because we lack a substantially thick layer of protection (compare 1-2 inches of fur with 1-2 cm of skin), but since we lived on the Savannah and Coast that wasn't as big of a deal as the jungle.
Your first question is quite simple, actually. Compare the mouth-to-body ratio of humans to something like a wolf. Their jaws are absolutely huge, proportionately, to ours, so it makes sense that sweating through the mouth is more effective than it would be for us. Furthermore, they have fur so they *need* to sweat through their mouth. We have no such need. Directed sweating at areas that are heating up, rather than just trying to generally lower body temp through sweating from paws/mouths, is way more effective and efficient.
