Given the likelihood in nature of being attacked and wounded, how come they never came to have more hardened skin to prevent being penetrated so easily?
In: 48
All characteristics come at costs, and provide different benefits. Hard or rigid skin may protect from wounds better in some cases, but it can reduce sensitivity, mobility (light-weight is good!), flexibility, and once you are wounded there are cases where it’s harder to heal. Not to mention heat exchange and the like, or the resources required to grow and maintain denser skin. For some animals it makes sense, for a lot, the cost is too high. You’d be better off running away or healing from minor wounds (also a + with soft tissue often) than losing a chase and *having* to endure being penetrated.
So yeah. Most creatures tend to be durable on the parts they need. Hooves, claws, teeth, feet, those kinds of things. And, vital organs get their own protection. The rest? Not so much, unless their environment/predators call for it.
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