Because the characteristics of the cuticle (such as the sizes, shapes, and arrangement of scales) are the critical features of hair, the scale casting of hairs is very useful for biologists or forensic investigators to identify the origins (human or animal) of the hairs.

Scales: Outermost portion of the cuticle, flattened and imbricate in humans, pointing toward the distal end of the hair shaft. Tactile hairs (Vibrissae): Whiskers only found on animals. Telogen:...

Spinous or petal-like scales are triangular in shape and protrude from the hair shaft. They are found at the proximal region of mink hairs and on the fur hairs of seals, cats, and some...

Spinous or petal-like scales are triangular in shape and protrude from the hair shaft. They are found at the proximal region of mink hairs and on the fur hairs of seals, cats, and some other animals. They are never found in human hairs.

Imbricate scale patterns are found on both humans and animals. Spinous scales have angular edges and are found in animals only. Coronal scales are similar to cups stacked one inside the other. They are most often found in bats and rodents and are occasionally found on human hair.

Human scalp hair is a bio-synthesized material that has a complex internal structure. The adult human hair is around 20–180 µm in width, and generally grows to a length of approximately 90 cm. It consists of many layers including the cuticle, the cortex and the medulla. These layers are bound together by the cell membrane complex (Robbins ...

Jan 10, 2021 · Under a microscope, human hair looks a lot like animal fur. More specifically, it appears as a keratin/ pigment filled tube that’s covered with lots of small external scales. These scales are what tells apart healthy hair from damaged hair.

The imbricate scale pattern is a flattened wavy pattern that is commonly found on human hair and many types of animal hair. The coronal scale pattern is a crown-like pattern that resembles a stack of paper cups, and is normally found only on very fine hair.

Cuticle is the outermost region of a hair composed of layers of overlapping scales. Cuticle thickness is the relative size of the cuticle from its outer margin to the cortex when viewed microscopically.

Mammalian hair consists of three distinct morphological units, the cuticle, the cortex and the medulla. The distinctive pattern shown by these units varies over the length of the hair in a way that can be very characteristic.