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The term fur refers to the body hair of non-human mammals also known as the pelage (like the term plumage in birds). True fur comes from animals where the coat consists of short ground hair, long guard hair, and, in some cases, medium awn hair. Not all mammals have fur; animals without fur may have the epithet " naked", as in The Naked Ape and naked mole rat.

Fur usually consists of two main layers:

• Ground hair or underfur - the bottom layer consisting of wool hairs when tend to be shorter, flattened, curly and denser than the top layer.
• Guard hair - the top layer consisting of longer straight shafts of hair that stick out through the underfur. This is usually what's visible in most mammals and contain most of the pigmentation.

1 Fur clothing

Fur served as an important source of clothing for humans, especially in cold countries, where it remains a popular luxury item. Sources of fur for clothing include:

• beaver
• ermine
• fox
• minkThe mink is a mammal in the family Mustelidae, closely related to the weasel. The term "mink" refers to any of several dark-colored, semi-aquatic, carnivorous mustelids in various subgenera of genus Mustela. The name may have originated in the Swedish mae
• otterAmblonyx Aonyx Enhydra Lontra Lutra Lutrogale Pteronura Otters are aquatic or marine carnivorous mammals, members of the large and diverse family, Mustelidae, which also includes weasels, polecats, badgers and others. There are 13 species of otter in 7 ge
• rabbitRabbit usually refers to the European Rabbit Oryctolagus cuniculus a native of southern Europe. It has been widely introduced elsewhere often with devastating effects on local biodiversity. Rabbits in the wild The European Rabbit is a small grey-brown mam
• sableSable : Animalia : Chordata : Mammalia : Carnivora : Mustelidae Martes zibellina Binomial name ''Martes zibellina The sable a small quadruped, closely akin to the martens, and known by the zoological names of Martes zibellina or Mustela zibellina originat
• sealOtariidae Phocidae Odobenidae Pinnipeds are large marine mammals belonging to the Pinnipedia a family (sometimes a suborder or superfamily, depending on the classification scheme) of the order Carnivora. The true seals, sea lions, fur seals and Walrus are
• catFor alternative meanings see cat (disambiguation). The cat (also called domestic cat or house cat is a small feline carnivorous mammal. Its scientific name is Felis silvestris catus or Felis silvestris domesticus but the species is sometimes referred to a
• dogThis article discusses the domestic dog. For other members of the dog family, see Canidae. The dog is a canine omnivorous mammal that has been domesticated for somewhere between 14,000 and 150,000 years. In those millennia, the dog has developed into hund

The creation of fur clothing involves leaving the hair on the animal's processed skin; in contrast, leatherLeather is a material created through the tanning of hides, pelts and skins of animals. Leather was a very important clothing material, and its other uses were legion. Together with wood, leather formed the basis of much ancient technology. Leather with t such as sheepskin involves removing the fur from the skin and using only the skin, and the use of wool involves shearing the animal's hair without harming the animal so that the wool can be regrown. Fake fur designates any synthetic material that mimics the appearance and feel of real fur, without the use of animal products.

The fur trade played an important economic role in the past. Fur trappers explored and opened up large parts of North America, and the fashion for beaver hats led to intense competition for supplies of raw materials. Starting in the latter half of the 20th century, producers and wearers of fur have been criticized because of mounting beliefs that animal trapping and fur farm s are cruel, and that the killing of animals for clothing is made unnecessary by modern natural and synthetic fibers.

The soft, warm texture of fur appeals to many people; for some, the attraction becomes a fur fetishism, a fetishistic attraction to people wearing fur, or in certain cases, to the fur garments themselves.