• Question: Why do we need eye brows?

    Asked by emmagrace to Dalya, Derek, Sarah, Tim, Tom on 20 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Tim Millar

      Tim Millar answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      To work as guttering to keep water out when it rains.

    • Photo: Tom Crick

      Tom Crick answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      We probably don’t “need” eyebrows, but they are a distinctive feature of the human face and are probably a legacy from when our ancestors had hair all over their bodies!

      Have you ever seen anyone without eyebrows? It looks strange and you can’t immediately see why!

    • Photo: Sarah Thomas

      Sarah Thomas answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      They help protect your eyes from sweat and debris that can run down your forehead. The arch shape diverts the rain or sweat around to the sides of our face, keeping our eyes relatively dry.

      But I was thinking about this and I wondered if there may be an evolutionary reason to do with communication that we have eye brows? Because they are quite an expressive part of your face and so are used with communication quite a lot, to convey the meaning of our words? But I don’t know about that for usre, it was just a thought! 🙂

    • Photo: Derek McKay-Bukowski

      Derek McKay-Bukowski answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      We don’t notice the need for eye brows much, because we have roofs, umbrellas and other good things to keep the rain off our heads and faces. However, if you are outside and lot in the rain and get REALLY soaked, then having eyebrows certainly helps.

      As Tim say… they are gutters for keeping water out of our eyes!

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