Microscopic hair characteristics of a few bovid species listed under Schedule-I of Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972 of India

Dorsal guard hairs of 10 bovid species of India, listed under Schedule-I of Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972 of India and some of them quite frequently encountered in illegal trade, were studied using light microscopy. We discuss characteristics including colour, hair thickness, cuticular pattern, medulla pattern, medulla index, cross-section and scale count index for species characterisation/identification to deal wildlife offence cases. Although some species could be identified very easily based on one or few microscopic hair characteristics, however there were some overlaps of few hair characteristics among some species. Species like Pantholops hodgsonii could be characterised most easily, just based on cuticular pattern and similarly Capricornis sumatraensis could be characterised simply by medulla pattern. For species showing overlaps in some of the microscopic hair characteristics, a combination of all the characteristics was most useful. We suggest the use of maximum number of parameters for distinguishing sympatric and closely related species. In addition to wild species, hair characteristics of three domestic species have been examined and compared with the selected wild species.