Masters Thesis

Hairbase: the development of an online reference atlas of mammalian hair

The class Mammalia contains approximately 5,400 species that display incredible variation in their pelage characteristics. When attempting to identify an unknown animal based on the morphological characteristics of its hair, the macroscopic and microscopic examination of guard hairs is often used. Species identification from small amounts of hair or single hairs has been the goal of many published atlases. However, many of these atlases do not adequately reflect the range of variation both between and within individual species. HAIRbaseTM is an online digital database of bright field and scanning electron microscope images of mammalian hair. In contrast to many other atlases, HAIRbaseTM contains images from both primary and secondary guard hairs from three distinct regions on the body from each species represented. HAIRbaseTM is an applicative tool that can aid forensic hair examiners by providing a visual reference that contains diagnostic information regarding traits of the hair shield, subshield, and basal regions, including medullary configurations, cortical characteristics, and cuticular patterns that can be used to generate leads in investigations involving animals.

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