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In humans, terminal hair is a variant of hair that is thick and long such as what grows on the scalp, as compared with vellus hair, colloquially known as peach fuzz, growing elsewhere.Marks, James G; Miller, Jeffery (2006)
''Lookingbill and Marks' Principles of Dermatology''
(4th ed.), Elsevier Inc., p. 11. During
''How the Endocrine System Works''
Blackwell Publishing, 2001, p. 75. The
''Forensic Examination of Hair''
CRC Press, 1999, p. 47. Human females on the other hand generally retain more of the vellus hair.Neal, Matthew; Lauren M. Sompayrac. ''How the Endocrine System Works''. Blackwell Publishing, 2001, pp. 70, 75. These hairs are present in the large apes but not in the small apes like gibbons and represent an evolutionary divergence.
In humans, terminal hair is a variant of hair that is thick and long such as what grows on the scalp, as compared with vellus hair, colloquially known as peach fuzz, growing elsewhere.Marks, James G; Miller, Jeffery (2006)''Lookingbill and Marks' Principles of Dermatology''
(4th ed.), Elsevier Inc., p. 11. During
puberty
Puberty is the process of physical changes through which a child's body matures into an adult body capable of sexual reproduction. It is initiated by hormonal signals from the brain to the gonads: the ovaries in a girl, the testes in a b ...
, the increase in androgenic hormone levels causes vellus hair to be replaced with terminal hair in certain parts of the human body.Hiort, O. "Androgens and Puberty". ''Best Practice & Research Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism'', Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 31–41. These parts will have different levels of sensitivity to androgens, primarily of the testosterone family.Neal, Matthew; Lauren M. Sompayrac''How the Endocrine System Works''
Blackwell Publishing, 2001, p. 75. The
pubic area
Pubic hair is terminal body hair that is found in the genital area of adolescent and adult humans. The hair is located on and around the sex organs and sometimes at the top of the inside of the thighs. In the pubic region around the pubis bo ...
is particularly sensitive to such hormones, as are the armpits which will develop axillary hair.Randall, Valerie A.; Nigel A. Hibberts, M. Julie Thornton, Kazuto Hamada, Alison E. Merrick, Shoji Kato, Tracey J. Jenner, Isobel De Oliveira, Andrew G. Messenger. "The Hair Follicle: A Paradoxical Androgen Target Organ", ''Hormone Research'', Vol. 54, No. 5–6, 2000. Pubic and axillary hair will develop on both men and women, to the extent that such hair qualifies as a secondary sex characteristic
Secondary sex characteristics are features that appear during puberty in humans, and at sexual maturity in other animals. These characteristics are particularly evident in the sexually dimorphic phenotypic traits that distinguish the sexes of ...
,Heffner, Linda J. ''Human Reproduction at a Glance''. Blackwell Publishing, 2001, p. 33. although males will generally develop terminal hair in more areas. This includes facial hair, chest hair, abdominal hair, leg and arm hair, and foot hair.Robertson, James''Forensic Examination of Hair''
CRC Press, 1999, p. 47. Human females on the other hand generally retain more of the vellus hair.Neal, Matthew; Lauren M. Sompayrac. ''How the Endocrine System Works''. Blackwell Publishing, 2001, pp. 70, 75. These hairs are present in the large apes but not in the small apes like gibbons and represent an evolutionary divergence.
See also
* Body hairReferences
{{Human hair Hair anatomy