Straggler Hairs. Why Do They Remain?

[champpy]

Ive noticed that a my hairlines recedes, there are still a couple hairs that remain in the area thats going slick bald. These hairs are dark terminal hairs and have been there long past when hair was abundant in that area.
Is there a theory as to why these few stragglers remain when all the other follicles decide to abandon ship?

 

[br1]

Because Androgenetic Alopecia sucks and it gets uglier every day.

 

[InBeforeTheCure]

It's probably due to something called developmental noise. Perhaps before you were born, when hair follicles were first developing, the concentration of some signaling molecule may have run along some mostly smooth gradient, but due to random fluctuations may have been unusually low or unusually high in some small area at some particular time. The cells of the hair follicle that developed from cells in that spot may have taken on slightly different epigenetic characteristics, and that follicle would be programmed to miniaturize much later.

Your identical twin (if you had one) might have stragglers in different spots.

Note: This is just a vague example of how it could happen - I don't know the exact mechanism. An expert in developmental biology could give you a better answer.

 

[Trichosan]

They remain to remind us of the androgenic apocalypse and what we could have been.

 

[champpy]

They remain to remind us of the androgenic apocalypse and what we could have been.

No sh*t. Seeing where some of these hairs are at and where my hairline used to be it's such a kick to the nuts