The leading theory on the origin of hair has been challenged by findings suggesting that mammalian locks originated in reptilian claws.

A genetic analysis of lizards and chickens - those feathery descendants of reptiles - uncovered genes that code for keratin, a hard protein whose derivatives form hair.

It has long been thought that mammals developed hair on their own, perhaps as an evolutionary tweak on scales in some intermediate lineage between auropsids - the forefathers of reptiles and birds - and the furry creatures whose descendants would eventually include us.

But the fossils of such an intermediate have never been found, and perhaps they never will. The new findings, write Italian biologists in today's Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, suggest that keratin genes "are not restricted to mammals and suggest that the evolution of mammalian hair involved the co-option of pre-existing structural proteins."

They say keratin genes likely emerged in the last common ancestor of all amniotes - the group of four-legged vertebrates spanning mammals, reptiles and birds.

All I can say is, there always did seem to be something a bit lizardlike about Cy Sperling