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by fingerlocks 1416 days ago
How many mammals actually sweat? I was surprised to learn that dogs don’t sweat, which seems obvious after the fact
1 comments

Good question. Human sweat _is_ indeed a pretty unique thing. Many animals sweat (e.g. horses, monkeys, hippos, etc). Some animals actually sorta do sweat but it doesn't play as big of a role in their biology as it does in humans. Dogs and cats only sweat in their paws for example

Humans are some of the weirdest hunters because of our incredible endurance. We're pretty slow creatures. If you're an ungulate that just got hit by an arrow, you can easily run away. But a human can keep following you for hours. Some hunter-gatherer groups will keep a persistent hunt going for up to 3 days

So yeah human sweat probably plays a pretty unique role in our physiology compared to most animals, but sweating is definitely not a uniquely human thing. And it's particularly more common in furless mammals