Why are most Animal’s nose holes facing forward, while human’s are underneath?
In: Biology
The cartilage/skin overlying the nose hole has become more prominent. I’ve heard theories that Neanderthals and humans evolved that feature in cold environments, to help warm up air as it entered our lungs (longer path, picks up more heat on the way in.) The same feature would help remove heat as it exited the nose (longer path drops more heat on the way out.)
Exact reason is unknown, and fossil record of human face bones is missing a lot of transitional stuff.
There are multiple factors. Primary is the simple fact that humans are the only fully bipedal animal with dexterous hands. Our noses are no longer close to the ground and our hands bring our food to our mouths. Whereas animals don’t grab their food, they get their mouth and nose close to it and take a bite.
For both humans and other animals scent is the primary indicator of the risk of eating something. Things we find smell gross often do because they contian similar aromas to that of rotting or poisonous things which obviously we wouldn’t want to eat. So instinctively we find those scents disgusting. So how we smell is heavily connected with how we eat.
Edit: this is one theory. There are multiple
My thought was something about smelling the food we are eating. Humans are omnivores and we have much simpler and more delicate digestion than many other species. Therefore the need to smell our food to make sure it hadn’t gone bad would likely be a powerful evolutionary force. There is likely also a sexual selection component and as someone mentioned, it helps people survive cold weather. People who evolved in Northern climates generally have larger noses then those who evolved in warmer climates.
Most animals when standing have their heads facing down while eating so rain could not get in but humans stand or sit with their heads facing forwards so to keep rain out our noses evolved to point down.
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I’d learned that it was too do with swimming.
Humans have a number of adaptations that are good for water, again what I remember so this may not be factual, but:
* More webbing between fingers than other primates.
* skin on fingers and toes that wrinkles when wet for extra grip.
* Feet that are more paddle shaped.
Is any of that true?
There are some interesting ideas here, but the one thing I would like to point out is that evolution is not a rigidly linear process. It also doesn’t trend towards perfection, good enough is fine, so the reason could be incidental, but as long as the condition doesn’t cause a disadvantage for those that have it there’s no reason to “get rid of it”.
Humans are catarrhine primates. This is a catarrhine trait shared with most old world monkeys and apes, barring a few of the odd nosed monkeys. The variability we see in humans appears to be related to environment, with the nose shape related to the need to humidify or warm air depending on context.
Source: Am Primatologist/Anthropologist.
I thought it had to do with breastfeeding, so babies can breathe while on the breast. Mouths of dogs for example are below the nose so they’re not covered while nursing. Basically the mouth and nostril openings can’t be right next to each other for any mammal.
My dad always said something about it being pointy and cartilaginous because it helped you take less force right to the weak areas of the skull in the front
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