학술논문

An experimental study investigating the ability of volunteers to identify squirrel species from tail–hair samples
Document Type
article
Source
Animal Biodiversity and Conservation, Vol 37, Iss 2, Pp 145-147 (2014)
Subject
Squirrel
Identification
Accuracy
Experiment
Zoology
QL1-991
Language
English
Spanish; Castilian
ISSN
1578-665X
Abstract
Hair–tubes, collecting nape hairs, are widely used for establishing the presence of red (Sciurus vulgaris) and grey (Sciurus carolinensis) squirrels. However it is time–consuming and prone to identification errors. An alternative is to collect tail hairs from sticky pads on baited poles. However, there is no evidence concerning identification accuracy of tail hairs. This study reports an experiment in which subjects underwent a short training session before identifying hair samples from four species. There was a 96.5% correct identification rate for grey squirrel hairs, and 77.5% for red squirrels, which suggests that tail hairs collection may provide a quick, easy and accurate method of identification for both species.