Hair Analysis of Mammals of Brazilian Wildlife for Forensic Purposes

Abstract

Wildlife trafficking is classified as the fourth largest illegal commerce in the world. Taxonomic identification of wildlife is an ordinary process for forensics experts. The aim of this study was to analyze animal's hair from Brazilian's wildlife through microscopic and compare morphology of bristle among species analyzed. Hair samples of nine species were analyzed. Glass slides were analyzed through optical microscopy and following measurements were obtained: total length, medulla diameter, overall diameter and overall ratio diameter of the medulla's diameter. The images obtained at identification of animals through the morphology of hair and the statistics analysis corroborates in favor for the validation of the technique.

Morphological Studies on the Guard Hair of the Mona Monkey (Cercopithecus mona) in Omo-Shasha-Oluwa Forest Reserves of Southwest Nigeria

“…The 'continuous' medullary pattern observed for the three locations was similar to that observed in brown howler monkey (Alouatta guariba) in Brazil (Tremori et al, 2018). The 'coronal' cuticle scale pattern of monkeys in SFR was simply making them resemble the 'imbricate' pattern for those in OFR and OlFR.…”

“…There are numerous studies on the hair morphology of different wildlife (buffalo, deer, hare, howler monkey, hyena, leopard, lion, tiger, and wild goat) and domestic (cow, goat, sheep) mammals from different parts of the world. Hair from different parts of the animals' bodies was studied and shown to be valuable for forensic and zoological purposes, and dietary ecology of predators (Davis, 2010; Verma and Joshi, 2012;Bhat et al, 2014;Farag, 2015;Cornally and Lawton, 2016;Sari and Arpacik, 2018;Tremori et al, 2018;Desai et al, 2019). Few of these studies involved non-human primates.…”

Guard Hair Morphology of Cercopithecidae Family in Omo Forest Reserve, Ogun State, Nigeria

“…hyena, leopard, lion, tiger, jaguar, puma and wild goat) and domestic (cow, goat, sheep) mammals from different parts of the world. Hair from different parts of the animals' bodies studied has shown to be valuable for forensic and zoological purposes, and dietary ecology of predators (Verma and Joshi, 2012;Bhat et al, 2014;Farag et al, 2015;Cornally and Lawton, 2016;Sarı and Arpacik, 2018;Tremori et al, 2018;Olaleru et al, 2020, Souza andAzevedo. 2021).…”

A Novel Application of a Cryosectioning Technique to Aid Scat Hair Microanalysis

“…KEYWORDS: forensic science, wildlife forensic science, cryosectioning, microstructure analysis, microscopy, scat hair Morphological identification of animal hair, also known as trichology, often serves as a fundamental species identification tool used for determining the legality of confiscated material that may also serve as evidence in wildlife forensic cases (1,2). Animal hair may be the only trace evidence remaining on clothing, vehicles, traps, and knives if found at wildlife forensic crime scenes that are often located in remote areas with no direct witnesses that may link a suspect with a crime (3,4).…”

“…The study of mammalian hair microstructure may benefit from the development of a technique that does not necessitate the use of media for embedding that may interfere with the biochemical profile of the sample and delivers even cross sections of single hair fibers that may be more amenable to improved morphological analysis and high‐resolution imaging of hair internal microstructure. Such a new tool for the fast processing of mammalian hair for morphological assessment in the laboratory may find new applications in answering a diverse range of wildlife forensic questions .…”