National bird, Indian peafowl (Pavo cristatus): Using DNA technology for species identification from degraded sample from Uttarakhand, India

Species identification from the samples obtained in wildlife crime cases usually presents a difficult challenge for forensic science investigators. The present paper describes a short study where a blood stain sample was recovered from an area outside the protected area network and used to determine a species identity. The mitochondrial DNA region of the questioned sample was amplified and sequenced using universal primers of cytochrome b gene (Cyt b) and 16S ribosomal RNA (16S rRNA) for species identity. The obtained sequencing results were compared with the most homologous sequences extracted from the NCBI-GenBank database. A phylogenetic tree was prepared with the aligned sequences to determine the species identity with strong bootstrap support. The mean distance and species score generated revealed that the grade of sequence similarity showed maximum homology (100 %) with the sequence obtained from the database. Based on the genetic analysis, the collected sample related to Indian Peafowl (Pavo cristatus) which is listed as Schedule I under the Indian Wild Life Protection Act, 1972.