Morphological patterns of lip prints in Saudi Arabia at Almadinah Almonawarah province

In the past decades, lip-print studies (cheiloscopy) attracted the attention of many scientists as a new tool for human identification in both civil and criminal issues. The present work aimed to study in depth the lip prints of Saudi individuals (males and females) in Almadinah Almonawarah province. It is the first chieloscopic study done on Saudi individuals. A total of 966 Saudi persons, including 13 identical twins and 19 families, were included in the study. Red or brown lip sticks, white copy papers and tissue papers were used to take the impressions of the lips by different methods. Each lip print was divided into six topographic areas, examined by magnifying hand lenses, then photographed and examined by the picture manager and fax viewer programs. A modification of the Renaud's classification 1973 was used to classify the types of grooves and the results were statistically analysed. Throughout the whole work, no identically similar lip-print pattern appeared in two subjects. Few prints (9.63% of both sexes) showed one type of grooves in all areas of the lips (12.59% of females and 5.87% of males), but two or more types of grooves were commonly seen in different areas of the print. A total of 72.67% of prints showed the same groove pattern in the upper right and upper left areas (78.89% of females and 64.79% of males), while 75.36% of the prints showed the same groove pattern in the lower right and lower left areas (74.81% of females and 76.06% of males). Nine types of grooves were recorded in Saudi lips. The groove type, horizontal with other forms, was the highest recorded (68.7% in females and 42.7% in males) followed by the complete bifurcated, complete branched, reticular, complete vertical, incomplete bifurcated, X or comma form, incomplete vertical, in descending order. The horizontal type was the least recorded one and appeared only in females. Dissimilar lip-print patterns were detected among different individuals of families. Non-identical lip-print patterns were recorded in identical twins. The present study described in detail the lip-print patterns of both males and females at Almadinah Almonawarah province and confirmed that the lip-print pattern is unique for each individual even in twins and family relatives. According to this finding, it is recommended to establish a database for all individuals in a certain locality, hoping to be a reference in civil litigations and criminal cases.