L11.    Microscopic hair characteristics: a tool for dealing with wildlife offence cases in India.
Vivek Sahajpal, Wildlife Forensic Cell, Wildlife Institute of India, Dehadrun, Uttranchal-248001, India.

The value of hair as physical evidence is well appreciated and acknowledged in dealing crime cases. Microscopic studies on hair have been used in identification of species and individuals. Microscopic structure of hair (cuticle, medulla, cross-section etc) is of immense value in identifying mammalian species in wildlife offence cases. India is home to over 400 species of mammals. Most of these mammals are facing extinction due to illegal poaching and illegal trade in their parts and products. The major reason behind this flourishing illegal trade is lack of know how and reference data to identify species from physical evidence (mostly hair) in case of wildlife offence cases related to mammals, as such the poachers escape conviction under wildlife protection laws. Since the mammalian species are most prone to poaching and hair is the most common physical evidence found in such cases, we characterized hair of 57 Indian mammal species, most prone to poaching using microscopic techniques ( Leica DMR for light and Philips for SEM). The colour, texture, length, thickness, medulla thickness, medulla, type, medulla percentage, cross-section shape, cuticular pattern (proximal, medial and distal) were studied. The observations were statistically evaluated with statistical software like SPSS-8 and Statistica. All the species could be successfully characterized with the microscopic studies by using the various parameters like medulla, cuticle and cross section etc. All the observations for these 57 species will be compiled in the form of a reference guide, which can be used for species identification by crime investigation agencies, forensic labs and people working on trichotaxonomy. In addition to this we report keratin profiles of some highly endangered mammalian species using SDS-PAGE (sodium dodecyl sulphate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis) and IEF (Iso electric focusing).