A technique for rapidly quantifying mammal hair morphology for zoological research.

The article discusses a study on the use of a method for quantifying mammal hair morphology and assessing morphological characteristics of mammalian hair for zoological research. In this study, morphological measurements were obtained on 120 hair samples from white-tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus using a standard flatbed scanner and an image analysis software program. Results show that the width of hair shafts ranged from 0.08 millimeter (mm) to 0.21 mm with normal distribution and a 2.2 mm average length of color bands measured by hue and brightness scores. Data also include the two-dimensional surface area measurement. The study suggests the importance of these parameters to examining factors influencing the morphology of mammalian hair, or assessing nutritional status.