Why do mermaids have long hair

I was thinking about how I'm not a fan of the image of mermaids constantly brushing their hair and looking in the mirror as it makes them seem shallow. But then I thought perhaps mermaids have to comb their hair out of the water because it's hard to do so underwater.

Maybe they don't spend that much time brushing their hair but because it is one of the main reasons why they would surface humans are more likely to see them doing so and therefore associate mermaids with hair brushing. Perhaps because most mermen have short hair they don't need to spend as much time combing it so they spend less time out of the water, hence fewer merman sightings and fewer merman folktales. Like I said a bit random but I had to share it.

Am I the first to think this or not? Call me Ally. It's a very cool theory! It makes perfect sense. N ot all merfolk live in the ocean. Yeah that makes sense! Plus if mermaids brush their hair underwater, it just floats everywhere and gets all tangled again. Of course, I think it would do mermaids good to cut their hair short so it doesn't get tangled much at all in the coral. Works for me. I love this idea! It would make for a cute conversation between a mer and a human in a story or movie.

Marsupial some egg laying koi, carp, salmon. Others polywogs. They migrate to warm waters even island keyholes. My daughters have to leave the water 35 min due to waterlogging. Men with vasectomies cutting themselves cleaning fish are biggest producers of new lines. All females risk etopic pregnancy swimming with fish pee. Why the secrecy and denial when everyone should be warned of hazards. Some perochial schools still educate some. Here they are still kept hidden underground housing-why?

In the sixtys they attended public schools. Why the segregation? Why the secrecy? Why the mass hysterical denial? Large companies hire them. They own companies. They hold admiral and captain officer ranks in us navy.

Mermen signed declaration of independance they expected equality. Why the apartheid? And when the sailers got home and described these creatures nursing their young like a woman the artist went to work drawing a fish with the upper body of a woman. So there you have the mermaids. The artists did not see the manatees.

They heard the story of the sailers. Great post, Craig. Just saying …. People used the same word impossible about platipus.. But eventually that turned out to be more than possible. According to science faries cant exist aswell..

My word they do.. Then again i believe that if ancient primates would be told about homo sapiens they would show the same impossible type reaction.

Its up to the creature how it would adapt to its sorroundings.. We cant imagine that sitting here.. Lots of wierd unlikely charastaristics were seen among creatures that we woudnt actually believe.. But your article is a good one.. Not that I think there are mermaids, but all these points aside from the fifth one are horrible lmao. Very good points, but since I am a fish breeder, I must disagree with point 3.

Not all fish give birth to eggs, the fish molly gives birth to live free swimming fry, and have babies almost once a month. As for the cold water, the mermaids could have adapted to the cold water. Not by being obese or hairy, just by adapting to be cold resistant and not being slowed down. Funny post, just a daily dose of fake for someone. Also it would make sense that they only live in shallow waters, because that would explain all of the sightings.

Maybe they can only dive deep for a small period of time. Also, who says that they have lungs? Now, if they did only reside in shallow waters, then they could be thin. Also the reproduction thing; maybe they have neither human or fish anatomy, and have their own way of repopulating. Also, with the constipated thing; perhaps they actually do have gills and expel ammonia just as fish do.

Just like in court when people are innocent until proven guilty, I believe the subject of mermaids being real is possible until proven impossible. That is all…. No offense but why do we always try to scientifically compare everything to human if mermaids are magical they could have ways of surviving. Their necessities of life could be different then ours.

Plus there is no proof that they are mammals,or birds,or reptiles. It is unnessicary to compare e. The whole thing was extremely insulting. I actually got invested and read up on it and then I realised it was fake. I feel like an idiot.

Anyway, this is a funny and beautiful post, thanks a lot and congrats! Sounds great with Wikipedia! Aeolius, a. Merman Dan. The mark of wisdom is the ability to entertain an idea without accepting it.

Rick- good question- check out my reply to Fred, above. Great Read! THANK you for such an awesome, fun and scientific take-down! Matt- yes very unlikely. You would probably spend much of your time caught in coral, I imagine. Also: Volcano vents. Thus merpeople are a hominin species with aquatic adapted physiology and joined legs. DJMethaneMan's answer to "Why would merfolk evolve arms?

Humans have far less body hair than chimps, for example, and what hair they do have follows the flow of water over the body. Taking the adaptation a step further are creatures in Scottish and Irish folklore known as selkies. On land, they appear human; in the sea, they wear sealskin swimsuits that men of the land tend to steal. Selkies have physiological adaptations akin to those of Michael Phelps and Gudlaugur Fridthorsson but can interbreed with humans.

Merpeople have adaptations along similar lines but to an even greater extent, though like seals and dolphins, they'd still breathe air. Occasionally humans are born with a limb difference called sirenomelia , in which both legs are fused into one hind limb. This limb has two femurs, four lower leg bones, and ten toes.

In humans, it's associated with defects elsewhere, and few with with the condition survive infancy. A photo of one survivor named Milagros Cerron can be seen as a transitional form between humans and merpeople. But among merpeople, sirenomelia is normal and beneficial, as it eliminates turbulence between the legs when performing a dolphin kick.

So over the generations, having what amounts to one thick leg became fixed in that population. So if split legs were selected out of the population, why hasn't hair also been selected out? Other answers explain several reasons for retaining it, which I'll summarize:. Hair has a variety of uses including indication[1], insulation, extension of touch, and in some cases protection porcupine.

I do not see why these qualities would not be applicable to water. You think they have hair because that is what you have on your head, but for the merfolk is completely different. When the merfolk swin, the sea water passes through their hair. Some kind of circulatory system. The issue is that this limits how fine a "hair" can be, because it must contain inner structures. The merfolk regularly eat their own hair. I don't like it much, kinda of gross. Also it could behard to explain from an evolutionary point of view.

When in contact with other hairs or skin, the elements captured can be passed directly to other hairs or skin. So it would work like gas interchange in the lungs: hair touching the skin would lose its elements, after which they would get back some from other hairs that are not touching the skin, etc.

That would favour merfolk having long hair. If the merpeople's babies are relatively helpless or start as weak swimmers, head hair could remain as a useful point for the young to cling to as the adult swims around, keeping its arms free. This would be analogous to other ape young which cling to their mother's body. For the purposes of worldbuilding, you could run with this idea without needing to excessively dirty up their hair with ecosystems of symbiotes nor tying their lifestyles to humans in any way.

I can't claim it as my idea, nor can I find where I first heard it, but it was definitely in the context of the aquatic ape hypothesis. I find it hard to imagine how a mermaid would evolve, I prefer the interpretation that they're something ancient wizards devised and just-so-happened to result in a viable species.

They wouldn't be fast enough to catch fish directly and spears would only work until the fish evolved to be wary of anything spear-like, but a combination of spear-fishing, line-fishing and net-fishing would probably work well. The crafting of hair-based tools would create a selective pressure in favour of mermaids having hair that grows long, quickly, silky and strong. It would be interesting if only the mermaids have long hair and the mermen are bald as having a full head of long hair could be seen as a status symbol.

Though maybe not the best solution, Depending on the environment, the Hair might just not be enough of a menace to be evolved away. Humans have advanced to such a degree that even heavily disadvantaged, we can still thrive. If the reasons to not have hair are simply for Speed and such, then if they with hair already move faster than they ever need to, there is no reason why it would disappear. Though I cant list off anything with certainty, Humans definitely have Disadvantageous Genes and traits which get passed on anyway, because a man born without legs can still get around and live a very fulfilling life using only his arms and a wheelchair.

Technology and being the dominant species overcomes many of the minor evolutionary disadvantages to the point where they still exist even today. People with Dwarfism can still have kids who also have Dwarfism. Merfolk could be in the same situation.

Perhaps it could have been used to attracted mates. There are birds that use various multicolored feathers to attracted mates. Perhaps the mere creatures use hair for the same reason. Hair doesn't help humans either.

We've evolved lack of hair on most of our body for various disputed influences. If you want something more concrete, perhaps their hair isn't hair at all. The big problem for mammals underwater is how to breathe.

If mermaids aren't mammals at all, perhaps their "hair" is actually external gill filaments. Maybe the hair is vestigial? Depending on the evolution of the mermaids it could have served a purpose before. The two most likely ancestors of an aquatic organism with hominid characteristics would be a fish-like creature or a hominid-like creature. The second pathway is probably your best bet. This has been proposed to account for various traits including bipedalism and the pattern of hair reduction seen in humans.

Many mammals which have adapted to partially aquatic lifestyles have lost hair. From memory it's been a long time since I read it , Elaine Morgan suggested that head hair could have been retained to protect the head and shounders from UV radiation, since if you're standing up those are the parts that will get most exposure. Mammals which have adapted to a fully-aquatic lifestyle have mostly then lost their back legs whales, dolphins.

So in your world let's say at some point between 20Mya and kya hominids started adapting to swamp or coastal environments. After a while one population returned to land; another went fully aquatic. Explaining the retention of long hair from that point on is tricky, but secondary sexual characteristics are often under strong selective pressure even if they're not helpful for survival, or for a slightly more sinister explanation your merfolk could use their upper body appearance to lure their terrestrial relatives into deep water where they are likely to drown or are vulnerable to attack.

There are some pretty strong and valid criticisms of the AAH out there, but as a fictional device it's plausible enough. Let's think about it in a different way. What if the Merpeople have what look like hair if you compare them to humans, but actually function as biological sensing organs.