Why Don't Snakes and Many Other Animals Get Sunburned?

Without a protective coating of feathers, fur or scales, pretty much any animal with
exposed skin can get a sunburn; luckily, most animals have adapted methods of avoiding the
sun and mitigating the damage.
Farmers have long known that naked animals, like freshly shorn sheep and domesticated
pigs (who’ve had their thick coating of back hair bred out of them), can get a sunburn.
In fact, although uncommon, even light-furred and hairless dogs and cats have been known
to burn.
Likewise, naturalists have observed burns from ultraviolet radiation on elephants and
rhinoceroses, and in fact, even whales, fish, amphibians and dolphins occasionally get a
burn from the sun.
In research published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society in 2010, scientists reported
that certain whale species, notably the relatively light-skinned blue whale, not only would suffer
from sunburn, but that the rate of sunburn in the marine mammals was increasing over
time.
The researchers theorized that ozone layer loss and thinning cloud cover could potentially
be to blame for the increase.
Those same scientists also found that, even though sperm whales spend significantly more
time on the surface in between dives (7 to 10 minutes) when compared with blue whales
(about 2 minutes), the darker sperm whales were far less likely to suffer from sunburn.
Further research also revealed that the sperm whales’ skin has a protective protein that
inhibits UV cellular damage.
Notably, although the blue whales’ incidences of sunburns were increasing, the scientists
did find evidence that the species is able to tan, so sun exposure did not always result
in such damage.
Likewise, many land animals have also adapted methods of protection from the sun.
For example, pigs and rhinoceroses wallow in mud, as do elephants who are also known
to seek out shade, toss dirt and sand on their backs and create protective shadows for their
little ones.
Hippos secrete an oily, pinkish-red liquid, particularly around their ears and faces (the
only parts typically above the water’s surface for any length of time) that absorbs ultraviolet
light and also is, apparently, naturally antibiotic.
As for snakes and other reptiles that at times bask in the sun, their inner epidermis is
protected from UV rays via their scales, which also function to help retain moisture underneath,
among other things.
For these animals, they would typically die from overheating before any threat of sunburn
became a problem.
A review published in JAMA Dermatology in January of 2014 showed that exposure to the
UV wavelengths associated with indoor tanning beds account for nearly twice as many skin
cancer diagnosis as smoking does lung cancer in the United States- about 400,000 annually
for tanning beds, compared to 200,000 from smoking.
Further, even just one tanning bed session increases your risk of getting melanoma- the
deadliest form of skin cancer- by 75%.
This is why the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American
Academy of Dermatology, the Skin Cancer Foundation, and the World Health Organization have all
called on every state to ban children under 18 from using tanning salons.
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Why Don't Snakes and Many Other Animals Get Sunburned?

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