ELi5: Before sheep shearing by humans was common, did all sheep just grow large, unmanageable coats that caused them to overheat or attracts pests and just eventually die?
In: Biology
Sheep have been selectively bred by humans to have extremely large coats. If humans were to disappear, modern sheep would not be able to survive very well in the wild due to their huge coats. Assuming a few of them managed to survive, they would quickly evolve back towards having shorter thinner coats.
The ancestors of modern sheep had much shorter thinner coats. Breeding sheep to have longer thicker coats was useful for humans because we got more wool per sheep. The domestic sheep don’t have to worry about surviving in nature because humans shelter, feed, and shear them.
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