All mammals share the trait of having hair on their body, from seals to bears.

For them, it can provide warmth, protection, camouflage, spread scent, help with self-defense and serve as a sensory gland.

Those are just a few of the fun facts about hair we learned from Rick Crosslin, MSD Wayne Township Scientist in Residences, today as he explained the science behind hair, which is also known as Trichology.

Interesting Hair Facts:

• We are covered in 6,000,000 hair follicles 
• 1,000,000 are on our head 
• We have a body covered in hair 
• Hair grows about 1/2 inch a month 
• Hair has different growth periods – that are staggered
• The hair shaft has three parts – color of hair found in the inner two parts 
• Anthropologists have worked on what caused us to lose most of our abundant hair as we moved out of the Savannahs  
• Anthropologists have studied why we still retain hair under our armpits and in our pubic area, which is to reduce friction and to spread odors and pheromones 
• Our hair thins as we age. This is part of our genetics and we do not get new follicles.
• As our skull grows larger our hair is spread out 
• Guinness World Records for longest hair 5.9m and 5.62m

For more from Crosslin visit, youtube.com/channel/UCTUaGjswflD3xO4rzZ5KSeQ.