Goose bumps

This article needs more reliable medical references for verification or relies too heavily on primary sources. Please review the contents of the article and add the appropriate references if you can. Unsourced or poorly sourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Goose bumps" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (January 2018)

Goosebumps
Other names	Goose-pimples, goose-skin, goose-flesh, cutis anserina, horripilation, horripilatio
Goose-bumps on a human arm
Specialty	Dermatology

Goose bumps, goosebumps or goose-pimples^[1] (also called chill bumps^{[citation needed]}) are the bumps on a person's skin at the base of body hairs which may involuntarily develop when a person is tickled, cold or experiencing strong emotions such as fear, euphoria or sexual arousal.^[2]

The formation of goose bumps in humans under stress is considered to be a vestigial reflex.^[3] Its function would have made human ancestors appear larger to scare off predators or to increase the amount of air trapped in the fur to make it more insulating. The reflex of producing goose bumps is known as piloerection or the pilomotor reflex, or, more traditionally,^[4] horripilation. It occurs in many mammals; a prominent example is porcupines,^[5] which raise their quills when threatened, or sea otters when they encounter sharks or other predators.