FURSKIN IDENTIFICATION

In past years valuable information has been accumulated
about micro-morphology of a number of important fur species.
This could be used in solving problems with fur skin
identification when only a small sample of material is available.
Such a situation is currently appearing in zoology,
archaeology and criminology. However, when one tries to
use this technique, one is usually faced with a considerable
amount of time needed to analyze the micro photographs
and determine the most probable fur skin type. In this web
site, we describe the Furskin Identification program for rapid
analysis and identification of fur skin species based on its
micro-morphology and wide collection of fur skins and their
microscopic patterns. The structural features can be
described by special code numbers, previously suggested.

The identification of a biological object using a mathematical
model was first suggested by Beers and Lockhart^*) for
bacterial species. The mathematical basis by which such
programs provide identification is derived from a theorem of
probabilities. Furskin is the first program created for fur skin
identification and for simplification of the procedure which
has allowed a very quick and exact comparison of structural
patterns and eliminates much of the tedious work associated
with the use of the Atlas book.




^*) Beers, R.J. Lackhart, W.R. 1962. Experimental methods
in computer taxonomy. J. Gen. Microbiol. 28: 633-640.