Aquatic ape theory
From EvoWiki
The Aquatic Ape theory argues that in the past, humanity's primate ancestors dwelt in shallow waters for the sake of safety and food supply. The German biologist Max Westenhõfer was perhaps the first to publish the idea in an evolutionary context. The theory seeks to explain human traits such as hairlessness, salty tears, fat tissue, bipedalism and sweat glands. It also explains why human body is streamlined and why apes quickly drown when put in water while humans do not. Using the principle of convergent evolution, it says that life in an aquatic environment explains these features, and that a transition from ape to hominid in a non-aquatic environment cannot.
The theory has fallen out of favor because several key pieces of evidence fail to support the theory. For example, hairlessness, while found in several aquatic mammals, is not indicative of aquatic mammals, as several aquatic animals have thick fur coats, such as otters, sea lions, and capybaras, and that some non-aquatic mammals, such as aardvarks, rhinoceri and naked molerats, are hairless. Also, no fossil remains of apes or hominids have been found in sediments lain down in aquatic environments.
