Animals don't wear sunscreen; How do they prevent sunburn?
But animals stays more under this direct sunlight than human, so they should get sunburn too!. However, their own case is different and that is where am going to lay emphasis on.
The sun has been existing for some billions of years now to be precise 4.5 billion years (thanks to the astronauts that came down with moon rocks). Selective pressure of the sun on animals had help them to develop mechanism in their body system to withstand it. You could see both wild and some domesticated animals in your environment all having these defence mechanism. Some have wool, some fur, hair, while some possess scales and others feather depending on their habitat.
Just as human has skin, they too possess skin just that theirs is protected by those adaptive means listed above, while some possess non. So how do such animals withouth fur or wool get themselves cooled on a sunny day and how do they prevent sunburn ?
They are not actually helpless. Though they seems not to have developed physical protection over their skin unlike those earlier listed, but they do have their own ways of protecting their skin against sunlight and regulate their body temperature.
Some of these animals possess a gene that produce a compound known as gadusol, a compound that act as sunscreen for them. Some birds, fish, reptile and amphibians possess this compound.
If you have ever been to the jungle or to the zoological gardens or even game reserves, you would have seen several animals with very thick skin, good examples are Elephants and Rhinoceros.
Elephants most times throw over themselves mud and soil, a means they employed to resist high temperature and sunburn. Immediately the mud dries up, the soil cake begin to act as a blockade between the sun and their skin.
That was a general believe of how elephants get rid of heat and protect it's skin against sunburn until research report by some Scientist reveals that elephants possess all over their body what is called hot spots. Increase in temperature of their body trigger their skin patches to enlarge and allow more blood to flow near the skin surface. This was ascertained with the aid of thermal camera which captures how heat is emitted out of their skin.
The explanation given above concerning the hot spot of elephant is a bit weird, because it is expected that large body animals do conserve or retain heat more relative to the size of body, their body surface area is small for escape of heat from it. The weird phenomenal helps them to rapidly lose heat, and got their body temperature regulated.
Hippopotamus another furless and featherless big animal dwell mostly inside water and only emerge to land in the evening to feed. It's all to protect itself against the scotching sun.
Av Nevit Dilmen (talk) - Eget arbete, CC BY-SA 3.0,
One amazing method that Hippopotamus use to screened itself against sunlight is the secretions of a reddish oily material. This fluid it secrete is called hipposudoric acid.
It's a red pigment located in the skin and is commonly known as blood sweat it is neither sweat nor blood. It's secretion is meant to cool their skin. Though it's acidic, it also has certain antibacterial function as well for protecting the animal skin against bacteria. Both old and young hippopotamus secretes this red fluid for sunscreen mechanism.
If you have seen a Giraffe stick out it's long tongue to browse on leaves, you will definitely see a long dark coloured tongue which is about 18-21 inches long.
The presence of melanin pigment is responsible for the dark colour. It's an adaptive means of preventing sunburn since the tongue is always outside. The top part of their tongue is however not dark due to the fact that it's always inside the mouth. That part may be pink or purple.
The melanin on the tongue can be said to be a natural sunscreen which protect the tongue against ultraviolet light. That is why you may not be surprised that dark coloured people hardly experience sunburn because their skin is rich in melanin pigment.
I earlier discussed about whales been sunburn, but do you know that they also possessed a special body mechanism that
helps them to hinder sunburn.
These sea mammal has their own way of reversing the damages caused by Ultraviolet light on their skin.
Watching these sea mammals very well, you would agree with me that some of them have dark coloured skin. This is as of pigment that is present in some of these whales that helps to darken their skin and their got it protected against sunburn.
Some whales also possess some genes that helps them to protect their skin against stress. Some have their delicate skin layer protected by another thick layer which is exposed to their immediate environment.
Rhinoceros and Pigs are similar too in the way they protect themselves from sunburn. Like elephants and hippopotamus discussed earlier, Rhinoceros are susceptible sunburn, so wallowing in the mud is a means they employed to keep themselves safe from the Ultraviolet light of the sun.
Some domesticated animals such as dogs that have not all their skin covered by fur can experience sunburn. If you have a white coloured or your dog fur is light coloured, or yours is a hairless breed, they can get sunburn when they are exposed to ultraviolet light from the sun. If you have dalmatians, pitbulls or greyhounds as the breed of your dog, I think you might have to worry about sunburn. Any exposed part of dog skin such as underbelly, nose, ears even their mouth region with less hair protection is likely going to get sunburn. When you notice that the dog skin has become reddish or pinkish or become like leather (unusual thickness). You should know the pet has been sunburn.
The best way to help such type of domesticated animals is to restrict their movement when the day is very sunny. You can also help the dog with some artificial sunscreen for pet such as the one that contain no Zinc.
It's a bad idea to shave the fur of your dog, or any of your domesticated animals, by doing so, you are removing their natural sunscreen and it can be deleterious to their dermal health.
Final word
Animals don't really need to go to the drug store or pharmacy to get sunscreen product. Many of them by nature have deviced a means of protection against sunburn. We human should not tamper with their naturally developed means of surviving the harshness of the sunlight.
Thanks for stopping by, if you find this post interesting, you can drop your comment behind. You can also join @steemstem on discord by clicking on DISCORD
References
Why-are-giraffes-tongues-black. Retrieved on 8th June 2018
Ask-an-expert-do-animals-get-sunburned. Retrieved on 8th June 2018
In a way I feel that humans have a more sophisticated brain while animals have a more sophisticated body system, we can adjust to things by creating alternatives using our brains, but their body automatically does this, awesome nature!
Thanks very much @joelagbo, you are absolutely correct
I was also thinking the same when reading the title, they either have a thick skin or their fur is what protects them.
It is really nice to see the actual explanation of how some animals protect themselves from the sun.
Thanks for sharing @steepup!
You are welcome @dedicatedguy, selective pressure of the sun on animals has helped them alot to protect themselves against ultraviolet light which cause sunburn. Those without fur,scale or feather deviced their own means of protection against sun, and special thanks to gadusol.
This is really fascinating
Never thought of it when reading the lady's post..... But God is Merciful
Thanks for stopping by @osariemen. Those animals are well developed to survive in their own way.
Congratulations @steepup! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click on the badge to view your Board of Honor.
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOP
To support your work, I also upvoted your post!
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by Steepup from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows. Please find us at the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
If you would like to delegate to the Minnow Support Project you can do so by clicking on the following links: 50SP, 100SP, 250SP, 500SP, 1000SP, 5000SP.
Be sure to leave at least 50SP undelegated on your account.
Animals always have a way to sort themselves out lol. That’s their own replacement of the technology humans have. Thanks for sharing
Thanks for stopping by @florae for stopping by. Animals are unique, that is even why they can see danger ahead while human never perceived anything.
To make stuffs bold is ** **.
Animals are far more independent than we are, they don't rely on technology to save themselves.
I had never really thought about why they don't get sunburnt. It's good to know though.
Thank you for enlightening me.
Don't mind steemit, if you read on busy.org the bold command was okay. But steemit.com is funny.
Thanks for visiting. You are unique. @addempsea
My pleasure bro.
Okay.
I was also thinking the same when reading the title, they either have a thick skin or their fur is what protects them.
It is really nice to see the actual explanation of how some animals protect themselves from the sun.
Thanks for sharing @steepup!
This is quite enlightening. I think animal just like human has innate ability to adapt to their environment in order to keep on surviving. Do you think some of these animals may have develop the ability to prevent sunburn in the process of time?
Thanks for stopping by @saintgentle. To your question, they developed this ability to prevent sunburn by an phenomenon known as selective pressure, it's the adaptive measure they developed as a result of a long term exposure to sun., something like evolution .
Congratulations! Your post has been selected as a daily Steemit truffle! It is listed on rank 14 of all contributions awarded today. You can find the TOP DAILY TRUFFLE PICKS HERE.
I upvoted your contribution because to my mind your post is at least 32 SBD worth and should receive 153 votes. It's now up to the lovely Steemit community to make this come true.
I am
TrufflePig
, an Artificial Intelligence Bot that helps minnows and content curators using Machine Learning. If you are curious how I select content, you can find an explanation here!Have a nice day and sincerely yours,
![trufflepig](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SmokinCaterpillar/TrufflePig/master/img/trufflepig17_small.png)
TrufflePig