Animals don't wear sunscreen; How do they prevent sunburn?

If human got their skin tanned why don't we have sunburn elephants or sunburn whale in the ocean.? Did I just say whales don't get sunburn? Recently, researchers discovered blister on some whales and they gave a closer look at it. From the researchers report, they discovered that skin samples taken from three species of whales (Blue, Sperm and Fin ) contain sunburn cells. This reason could not be far fetched as whale really like to spend sometime on water surface some even spend a considerable amount of minute between dives while some stay for hours on surface.

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The sun has been existing for some billions of years now to be precise 4.5 billion years (thanks to the astronauts that came down with moon rocks). Selective pressure of the sun on animals had help them to develop mechanism in their body system to withstand it. You could see both wild and some domesticated animals in your environment all having these defence mechanism. Some have wool, some fur, hair, while some possess scales and others feather depending on their habitat.

Just as human has skin, they too possess skin just that theirs is protected by those adaptive means listed above, while some possess non. So how do such animals withouth fur or wool get themselves cooled on a sunny day and how do they prevent sunburn ?

They are not actually helpless. Though they seems not to have developed physical protection over their skin unlike those earlier listed, but they do have their own ways of protecting their skin against sunlight and regulate their body temperature.

Some of these animals possess a gene that produce a compound known as gadusol, a compound that act as sunscreen for them. Some birds, fish, reptile and amphibians possess this compound.

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If you have ever been to the jungle or to the zoological gardens or even game reserves, you would have seen several animals with very thick skin, good examples are Elephants and Rhinoceros.

Elephants most times throw over themselves mud and soil, a means they employed to resist high temperature and sunburn. Immediately the mud dries up, the soil cake begin to act as a blockade between the sun and their skin.

flickr.com.CCO

That was a general believe of how elephants get rid of heat and protect it's skin against sunburn until research report by some Scientist reveals that elephants possess all over their body what is called hot spots. Increase in temperature of their body trigger their skin patches to enlarge and allow more blood to flow near the skin surface. This was ascertained with the aid of thermal camera which captures how heat is emitted out of their skin.

The explanation given above concerning the hot spot of elephant is a bit weird, because it is expected that large body animals do conserve or retain heat more relative to the size of body, their body surface area is small for escape of heat from it. The weird phenomenal helps them to rapidly lose heat, and got their body temperature regulated.

Hippopotamus another furless and featherless big animal dwell mostly inside water and only emerge to land in the evening to feed. It's all to protect itself against the scotching sun.

Av Nevit Dilmen (talk) - Eget arbete, CC BY-SA 3.0,

One amazing method that Hippopotamus use to screened itself against sunlight is the secretions of a reddish oily material. This fluid it secrete is called hipposudoric acid.

It's a red pigment located in the skin and is commonly known as blood sweat it is neither sweat nor blood. It's secretion is meant to cool their skin. Though it's acidic, it also has certain antibacterial function as well for protecting the animal skin against bacteria. Both old and young hippopotamus secretes this red fluid for sunscreen mechanism.

If you have seen a Giraffe stick out it's long tongue to browse on leaves, you will definitely see a long dark coloured tongue which is about 18-21 inches long.

The presence of melanin pigment is responsible for the dark colour. It's an adaptive means of preventing sunburn since the tongue is always outside. The top part of their tongue is however not dark due to the fact that it's always inside the mouth. That part may be pink or purple.

The melanin on the tongue can be said to be a natural sunscreen which protect the tongue against ultraviolet light. That is why you may not be surprised that dark coloured people hardly experience sunburn because their skin is rich in melanin pigment.

I earlier discussed about whales been sunburn, but do you know that they also possessed a special body mechanism that
helps them to hinder sunburn.
These sea mammal has their own way of reversing the damages caused by Ultraviolet light on their skin.

Pixabay.com. CCO

Watching these sea mammals very well, you would agree with me that some of them have dark coloured skin. This is as of pigment that is present in some of these whales that helps to darken their skin and their got it protected against sunburn.

Some whales also possess some genes that helps them to protect their skin against stress. Some have their delicate skin layer protected by another thick layer which is exposed to their immediate environment.

Rhinoceros and Pigs are similar too in the way they protect themselves from sunburn. Like elephants and hippopotamus discussed earlier, Rhinoceros are susceptible sunburn, so wallowing in the mud is a means they employed to keep themselves safe from the Ultraviolet light of the sun.

Some domesticated animals such as dogs that have not all their skin covered by fur can experience sunburn. If you have a white coloured or your dog fur is light coloured, or yours is a hairless breed, they can get sunburn when they are exposed to ultraviolet light from the sun. If you have dalmatians, pitbulls or greyhounds as the breed of your dog, I think you might have to worry about sunburn. Any exposed part of dog skin such as underbelly, nose, ears even their mouth region with less hair protection is likely going to get sunburn. When you notice that the dog skin has become reddish or pinkish or become like leather (unusual thickness). You should know the pet has been sunburn.

pixabay.com. CCO

The best way to help such type of domesticated animals is to restrict their movement when the day is very sunny. You can also help the dog with some artificial sunscreen for pet such as the one that contain no Zinc.
It's a bad idea to shave the fur of your dog, or any of your domesticated animals, by doing so, you are removing their natural sunscreen and it can be deleterious to their dermal health.

Final word

Animals don't really need to go to the drug store or pharmacy to get sunscreen product. Many of them by nature have deviced a means of protection against sunburn. We human should not tamper with their naturally developed means of surviving the harshness of the sunlight.

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References

Why-are-giraffes-tongues-black. Retrieved on 8th June 2018

Ask-an-expert-do-animals-get-sunburned. Retrieved on 8th June 2018

How-animals-like-hippos-elephants-and-whales-protect-themselves-from-the-sun. Retrieved on 8th June 2018

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