Hair can be defined as a slender, thread-like outgrowth from a follicle in the skin of mammals. Composed mainly of keratin, it has three morphological regions—the cuticle, medulla, and cortex....

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. Coronal scales are found on many types of animal hair and are very rarely present on human hair.

Two main patterns of cuticle scales were identified: (i) imbricate, this includes ovate, acuminate, elongate, flattened and crenate cuticles; and (ii) coronal, which include simple, serrate or dentate cuticles.

The coronal, or crown-like scale pattern is found in hairs of very fine diameter and resemble a stack of paper cups. Coronal scales are commonly found in the hairs of small rodents and bats but...

The coronal, or crown-like scale pattern is found in hairs of very fine diameter and resemble a stack of paper cups. Coronal scales are commonly found in the hairs of small rodents and bats but rarely in human hairs. Figure 4 is a diagram depicting a longitudinal view of coronal scales, and Figure 5 is a photomicrograph of a free-tailed bat hair.

A hair may be defined as a slender threadlike olltgrowth from the follicles of the skin of mammals, composed essentially of keratin and having three anatomical regions: The cuticle, the cortex and the medulla.

The scales of an animal’s hair show many distinctions such as coronal (crown-like) and spinuous patterns, whereas in the case of humans the scale patterns are of the ‘imbricate’ type (flattened) (2,3).

In this session, we’ll examine various animal hair specimens macroscopically and microscopically and produce scale casts to learn how to differentiate animal hair from human hair.

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. The cortex of the hair is the next layer of a hair fiber and it is where pigment granules are found. In general, pigment granules are more evenly distributed in human hair than in animal hair.

Research highlights Hair scale pattern was imbricate in (large ruminants, goat, and horse); coronal in (carnivores and donkey); and spinous in (sheep) with different scale margins type.