{"title":"Tiger hair morphology and its variations for wildlife forensic investigation","authors":"Thitika Kitpipit, Phuvadol Thanakiatkrai","doi":"10.14456/MIJST.2013.36","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Tiger population has dramatically decreased due to illegal consumption and commercialisation of their body parts. Frequently, hair samples are the only evidence found in the crime scene. Thus, they play an important role in species identification for wildlife forensic investigation. In this study, we provide the first in-depth report on a variety of qualitative and quantitative characteristics of tiger guard hairs (24 hairs per individual from four individuals). The proposed method could reduce subjectivity of expert opinions on species identification based on hair morphology. Variations in 23 hair morphological characteristics were quantified at three levels: hair section, body region, and intra-species. The results indicate statistically significant variations in most morphological characteristics in all levels. Intra-species variations of four variables, namely hair length, hair index, scale separation and scale pattern, were low. Therefore, identification of tiger hairs using these multiple features in combination with other characteristics with high inter-species variations (e.g. medulla type) should bring about objective and accurate tiger hair identification. The method used should serve as a guideline and be further applied to other species to establish a wildlife hair morphology database. Statistical models could then be constructed to distinguish species and provide evidential values in terms of likelihood ratios.","PeriodicalId":49898,"journal":{"name":"Maejo International Journal of Science and Technology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7000,"publicationDate":"2013-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"3","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Maejo International Journal of Science and Technology","FirstCategoryId":"103","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.14456/MIJST.2013.36","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"综合性期刊","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 3
Abstract
Tiger population has dramatically decreased due to illegal consumption and commercialisation of their body parts. Frequently, hair samples are the only evidence found in the crime scene. Thus, they play an important role in species identification for wildlife forensic investigation. In this study, we provide the first in-depth report on a variety of qualitative and quantitative characteristics of tiger guard hairs (24 hairs per individual from four individuals). The proposed method could reduce subjectivity of expert opinions on species identification based on hair morphology. Variations in 23 hair morphological characteristics were quantified at three levels: hair section, body region, and intra-species. The results indicate statistically significant variations in most morphological characteristics in all levels. Intra-species variations of four variables, namely hair length, hair index, scale separation and scale pattern, were low. Therefore, identification of tiger hairs using these multiple features in combination with other characteristics with high inter-species variations (e.g. medulla type) should bring about objective and accurate tiger hair identification. The method used should serve as a guideline and be further applied to other species to establish a wildlife hair morphology database. Statistical models could then be constructed to distinguish species and provide evidential values in terms of likelihood ratios.
期刊介绍:
We accept contributions (full paper, review, report, communication, short communication, and technical note) in the fields of physical sciences, earth sciences, life sciences, agricultural sciences, and related technology including engineering but excluding logistics, ergonomics, computer science and engineering, sports science, pollution research, waste treatment, excavation technology, metallurgy, concrete technology, steel technology, fossil fuel technology, fluid mechanics, electrical engineering, engineering management, agricultural management, data mining, mobile telephone technology, wind power technology, wireless sensor networks, telecommunication, traffic monitoring and technology, etc.