FEATURE: Creature's Coiffure { 59 images } Created 10 Sep 2010
CREATURE'S COIFFURE - Hair, Fur and Style
Hairs, meanwhile 220 million years old, are characteristic for mammals. By the "Naked Apes" they are more leftovers of evolution. They are too less, too much or at the wrong place - and as head hair often an expression of animally inferiority complexes. So let's remain with the animals and their dermatological excesses. At least hairs are horn threads mainly existing out of keratin. The spines of a hedgehog are modified hairs, and the horn of a rhinoceros is actually hair, but what a kind of.
From an evolutionary point of view the multiple functions of hairs make them so successful. Hairs are not only protection against ultraviolet light or rain, isolation and thermoregulation - furthermore they are camouflage and social statement through impressing manes and threatening hair-raising.
Animals display an extraordinary diversity of coiffures, hairdos, fur and style. The dreadlocks of the Hungarian Puli, the angel hair of the Mohair goat, smooth curls of the Highland cattle, the scraggly hair of a Poitou donkey or the artistically fur pattern of a Leopard. They all show us that we, the "Naked Apes" are far away from this kind of evolutionary creativity.
Our approach was to photograph this feature like beauty or fashion. So we took the studio light out in the field. The pictures were made in zoos, on farms and at private hobby breeders in Germany and in the Netherlands. For sure all animals are alive, just with the exception of some very close fur patterns. These eight images were photographed at the fur collection of the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt. (Polar bear, Ringed seal, Tiger, Leopard, Giraffe, Snow leopard, Zebra duiker and Cheetah)
Hairs, meanwhile 220 million years old, are characteristic for mammals. By the "Naked Apes" they are more leftovers of evolution. They are too less, too much or at the wrong place - and as head hair often an expression of animally inferiority complexes. So let's remain with the animals and their dermatological excesses. At least hairs are horn threads mainly existing out of keratin. The spines of a hedgehog are modified hairs, and the horn of a rhinoceros is actually hair, but what a kind of.
From an evolutionary point of view the multiple functions of hairs make them so successful. Hairs are not only protection against ultraviolet light or rain, isolation and thermoregulation - furthermore they are camouflage and social statement through impressing manes and threatening hair-raising.
Animals display an extraordinary diversity of coiffures, hairdos, fur and style. The dreadlocks of the Hungarian Puli, the angel hair of the Mohair goat, smooth curls of the Highland cattle, the scraggly hair of a Poitou donkey or the artistically fur pattern of a Leopard. They all show us that we, the "Naked Apes" are far away from this kind of evolutionary creativity.
Our approach was to photograph this feature like beauty or fashion. So we took the studio light out in the field. The pictures were made in zoos, on farms and at private hobby breeders in Germany and in the Netherlands. For sure all animals are alive, just with the exception of some very close fur patterns. These eight images were photographed at the fur collection of the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt. (Polar bear, Ringed seal, Tiger, Leopard, Giraffe, Snow leopard, Zebra duiker and Cheetah)
