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Information about Fur

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A dog's hair usually consists of longer, stiffer, guard hairs—which can be straight, wiry, or wavy, and of various lengths, hiding a soft, short-haired undercoat.
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Detailed photo of the hair on the head of a five month old kitten.


The term fur refers to the body hair of non-human mammals also known as the pelage (like the term plumage in birds). Fur comes from the coats of animals; the animal's coat may consist of short ground hair, long guard hair, and, in some cases, medium awn hair. Not all mammals have fur; animals without fur may be referred to as "naked", as in The Naked Ape, naked mole rat, and naked dogs.

An animal with commercially valuable fur is a furbearer (see fur clothing).

Fur usually consists of two main layers:
  • Ground hair or underfur — the bottom layer consisting of wool hairs which tend to be shorter, flattened, curly and denser than the top layer.
  • Guard hair — the top layer consisting of longer straight shafts of hair that stick out through the underfur. This is usually the visible layer for most mammals and contains most of the pigmentation.

Fish-fur

'Fish-fur' is a slang term used in the Russian Army for the fake fur often used on winter clothing and the ubiquitous ushanka hats. So-named because it does not come from any recognisable animal, artificial fur is often a by-product of the petrochemical process.

See also

Hair is a filamentous outgrowth of protein, found only on mammals. It projects from the epidermis, though it grows from hair follicles deep in the dermis. Although many other organisms, especially insects, show filamentous outgrowths, these are not considered "hair".
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Mammalia
Linnaeus, 1758

Subclasses & Infraclasses
  • Subclass †Allotheria*
  • Subclass Prototheria
  • Subclass Theria

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In mammals, pelage is the hair, fur, or wool that covers the animal. In many mammals, the pelage is made up of more than one type of hair. Some of the most prominent types of hair that make up the pelage include guard hairs (such as the defensive spines of porcupines), bristles
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Plumage refers both to the layer of feathers that cover a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage vary between species and subspecies and can also vary between different age classes, sexes, and season.
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Down hairs, also called the ground hairs, are the very fine, fluffy hairs closest to the skin on some mammals. The hairs are short and crimped, which makes them highly efficient for trapping air and insulating the animal.
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Guard hairs are the longest, most coarse hairs in a mammal's coat, forming the topcoat (or outer coat). They taper to a point and protect the undercoat from the elements. They are often water repellent and stick out above the rest of the coat.
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Awn hairs are the intermediate hairs in a mammal's coat. They are shorter than the guard hairs and longer than the down hairs. They help with insulation and protect the down hairs underneath. Most of the visible coat is made of this kind of hair.
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Nudity or nakedness is the state of wearing no clothing. It is sometimes used to refer to wearing significantly less clothing than expected by the conventions of a particular culture and situation, and in particular exposing the bare skin of intimate parts and has analogous
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The Naked Ape: A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal (ISBN 0-385-33430-3) is a 1967 book by Desmond Morris which looks at humans as a species and compares them to other animals.
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Heterocephalinae
Landry, 1957

Genus: Heterocephalus
Rüppell, 1842

Species: H.
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A hairless dog is a dog with a genetic disposition for hairlessness. There are two known types of genetic hairlessness, a dominant and a recessive type.

Dominant genes


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Fur clothing is clothing made entirely of, or partially of, the fur of animals. Fur is one of the oldest forms of clothing, becoming widely used as primitive humans left Africa and entered cooler regions.
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pigment is a material that changes the color of light it reflects as the result of selective color absorption. This physical process differs from fluorescence, phosphorescence, and other forms of luminescence, in which the material itself emits light.
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ushanka (уша́нка) [uˈʂan.kə]
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Fur clothing is clothing made entirely of, or partially of, the fur of animals. Fur is one of the oldest forms of clothing, becoming widely used as primitive humans left Africa and entered cooler regions.
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Furry is an adjective referring to something covered in fur.

As a slang word, furry may also refer to:
  • A member of the furry fandom—fans of artwork, stories, and related products (comics, movies, costumes, etc.

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