Skin Side Insides

Why are some mammals furry and others, like us, not so? It's known that acquiring features in the skin tissue called epidermal rete ridges correlate with less hair, but the nature of the relationship has been unclear. By analysing the structure, gene activity and cell interactions in the skin of many mammalian species from grizzly bears to dolphins (mouse skin section shown), this study reveals rete ridges form after birth in several species not, like hair follicles and sweat glands, in the embryo. And gene mutations causing less hair don't induce rete ridges nor vice versa. Hence, rete ridges are not directly coupled to hair development. Such details could inform new approaches to wound repair and skin disease treatments

Image made using Leica Microsystems microscopy

Read the published research article here

Written by Lindsey Goff

Lindsey Goff

Editor-in-Chief

Formerly immunologist for Cancer Research UK, Lindsey has since moved into the field of scientific publishing. She looks after all BPoD editorial matters.

• Image from work by Sean M. Thompson and colleagues
• School of Molecular Biosciences, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Nature, February 2026