Himanshu. R. Joshi, Santosh. A. Gaikwad, M. P. S. Tomar and Kush Shrivastava
The current study was conducted to create markers for rapid identification of wild animals from hair samples. The study included four most common species of deer found in India i.e. mouse deer (Tragulus meminna), spotted deer (Axis axis), sambar (Cervus unicolor) and barking deer (Muntiacus muntjak); hair samples were collected from the neck, back and thigh region of the body. The differential microscopic anatomy was done on the basis of histological structures viz. cuticle, cortex, medulla and pigment granules. The specific variations were observed in present study as hair color (black, dark brown, light brown, white, yellow brown, white brown or yellow), cuticular margins (crenate, smooth, rippled), cortex color (brown, dark brown), medullary pattern (wide medulla lattice, narrow medulla lattice), pigment granules (black) and black and brown striations around the medulla. These characters were present in various combinations imparting a specific identity to each hair sample.
