"Red Dragon"  wrote in
news:cdd2qu$2s30$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org: 

> Is there anyone who can help me with this.  I notice that the breast
> of the female homo sapiens is much much larger than than of  the apes.
>  The female apes I notice,  have enlarged nipples but hardly any shape
> of a breast.  So we conclude that  the  homo's  female breast grew in
> size in the course of human evolution.  Is the breast size a factor to
> milk production?   Does it mean that the human baby require more milk
> than apes babies? 

Humans do in fact breast feed for a longer period of time than other apes, 
and are otherwise comparable in size, so even if the milk requirements per 
day are similar it is likely that larger breasts are more of a necessity in 
humans (to get past periods of food scarcity) than they are in other apes. 
But remember that the breasts only need to be large during early childhood 
- and in fact the breasts of human females do enlarge during pregnancy - so 
they could be small or non-existent at other times.  However, it is fairly 
well accepted that the breasts of female homo sapiens have also been the 
subject of sexual selection  (probably partly because size can be important 
in child survival). So the very noticeable size difference is probably only 
indirectly a result of the milk requirements of human babies.


Yours,

Bill Morse
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