Insulation 2: Hair & Feathers 1 – FT

1.  SEA OTTER FUR: The sea otter gets the prize for the densest fur on earth.  Each hair follicle contains 50 hairs.  This gives it an amazing 1 million hairs per square inch!  Their fur is so dense that water can’t touch the otters’ skin even when they go swimming.

2.    SEA OTTER FUR:  Ducks can sit on a lake in below freezing temperatures and not even feel the cold. This is partly due to the heat-making white fat that covers their body.

3.   SEA OTTER FUR:  In 2013, scientists were studying brown fur seal pups. and discovered that the outside of the fur was heated to a scorching 205ºF.  

4.   SEA OTTER FUR:  The internal temperature of the little otters didn’t even register one degree (hotter).

5.  FIBERGLASS:   People often put insulation in the interior walls of their house because it hinders sound from traveling through them. 

6.   GOOSEBUMPS:  Goosebumps are caused by the flexed erector pillow muscles  in your skin at the bottom of the tiny hairs.

7.   GOOSEBUMPS:  To keep the hairs erect, the brain continues to send messages to them.

8.   GOOSEBUMPS:  If you hike through a forest on a cold day, stay away from the cold wind as much as possible. Take shelter in the trees. In the trees, the air is moving very fast and is much warmer. 

9.   GOOSEBUMPS:  When you get goosebumps, it’s like you’re making a tiny forest of hair on your skin that trap a little air around your exposed skin.

10.   GOOSEBUMPS:  When cats come home on a really cold night after roaming the neighborhood, they often look like big puff balls.