Human Hair Vs Animal Hair

Differences between Human Hairs and Animal Hairs

Once determining that the fibrous evidence is a hair, our next step is on how to distinguish the feature differences between a human hair and an animal hair as shown in Table 8 (Sapp, 2004). (33 words)

Animal Hair

Coronal Spinous
Human Hair

Imbricate
Table 8. Feature Differences between Human Hair and Animal Hair (Sapp, 2004) (Tim Zietz, 2013).

From the morphological structural point of view as illustrated in Table 8, we can easily observe the cuticle of human hair has an imbricate scale pattern, whereas the cuticle of animal hairs may have a scale pattern of coronal (e.g. mouse), spinous (e.g. cat) or imbricate (e.g. dog) (Tim Zietz, 2013). (48 + 10 =58 words) Besides scale patterns, differences between human hair and animal hairs can be further differentiate using medullary index (MI) as stated in equation 1, where human hair has a medullary index of less than 1/3 while animal hair has a medullary index of more than 1/2 (Tim Zietz, 2013). (45words)

Medullary Index = (Diameter of Medulla)/(Diameter of Hair) --------- (1)
(8 words)

DNA Analysis of Hairs Once the hair is recovered using tape lifting or …show more content…
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