Animal Hair Slides
Fall 2011
Panda Bear
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Panda hair closely resembles polar bear hair and
black bear hair (the white and black)
Very thick and very coarse
Medulla – absent in white, continuous in black
Cortex – very large
Cuticle – overlapping
Bamboo does not offer enough nutrition to
hibernate so the giant panda must go south for the
winter
Zoos give birthday cakes made of ice and vegetables
with bamboo candles to pandas
http://www.sandiegozoo.org/animalbytes/sounds/p
anda.mp3
Cuticle:
• Petal-like scales
• Thin
Cortex:
• Orange in color
Medulla:
• Continuous
• Thick
Interesting Fact:
• A tigers stripes are like fingerprints –
Tiger Growl
no two are alike
http://www.junglewalk.com/popup.asp?type=
• Tigers can leap 10 yards and jump 15
Cuticle a&AnimalAudioID=326
feet high
Medulla
f
Cortex
Chris Veal
Chinchillas
Claudia Drinnan
• Chinchillas can jump up to five feet
above their head.
• Each chinchilla has about 20,000
hairs per square centimeter.
• Cuticle-shingles, very smooth
• Cortex-typically gray or beige
• Medulla-fragmented pattern
http://www.cheekychinchillas.com/chinsounds.html
Interesting Facts
• Wombats are very shy animals.
• Farmers consider wombats pests
because they damage crops and fences,
and cattle may break their legs by
stepping in wombat burrows.
By: Alex Sicilia
Cortex
Cuticle
Medulla
• Cuticle
• Thin, white outer edge.
• Cortex
• Medium size
• Color unknown
• Shape: tiny little lines and dots
• Medulla
• Partial on right side
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLv • Long, thin
• Fragmented
H2g3UzfE&feature=related
• Oval shape
Flattened/Crown-like
Cuticle: Imbricate or flattened scales,
white, very thin.
Cortex: Dark gray to black coloring, thin.
Medulla: Continuous, grey color, very thick.
Interesting Facts:
1.) One of the biggest racks of antlers ever
found was 81 inches across and 77 pounds.
2.) A bull moose looses his antlers each and
every year!
3.) Moose have hollow hair which helps them
to float.
• Medulla: is very thick and
continuous
• Cuticle: crown-like scales
• Cortex: thick
• An average dairy cow
weighs 1,400 pounds
• Cows only have bottom
teeth
Cortex
Cuticle
Medulla
Taylor Gallagher
Zebra
By: Emily Casey
• Every zebra has unique stripes, just
like human fingerprints
• Zebras cannot be tamed like horses
because of their unpredictable,
wild nature
• Cuticle- imbricate/ flattened scales
• Cortex- dark and thick; making up
mostly all of hair. Cortex varies
from light to dark due to if the hair
is black or white.
• Medulla- absent medulla
Cortex
Cuticle
http://www.wildsanctuary.com/java/applets/LivingLin
ks/audio/zeb.wav
Deer Hair Fiber Analysis
Ben Moller
Cuticle, particularly
thick compared to
other rodents or
animals
Medulla, is continuous
throughout the entire
fiber.
• Roughly 1.5 million
cars collide with dear
annually
• Airplanes in America
collide with roughly
two dear annually
Cortex, used to
determine pigment,
which in this case is
brown
Scale Pattern: Spinus or petallike scales protruding off from the
shafts on the hair fibers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X
aPhVcLdz4M&feature=related
Koala
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Cuticle
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Cortex
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Cuticle
Dark Brown
Continuous Line
Interesting Fact:
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Light Brown color
Medulla
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Spinus/Petal-like Scale Pattern
Koala’s aren’t bears, they’re marsupials
Koala’s don’t drink water. They get all their
water from Eucalyptus leaves
Noise they make:
https://www.savethekoala.com/sounds/k
oalagrunt.wav
Medulla
Cortex
Daria Capaldi
Joe Bisciotti
• A horse’s heart weighs
nine pounds
• The horse is a
herbivorous mammal
Medulla
Cuticle
Cortex
• The medulla is fragmented
• Has a thick cuticle
• Hair has an imbricate scale
pattern
Red Fox Jennifer Carr
Cuticle- Crown
Hear the
Cortex- Small
scream of
Medulla- Interrupted
the red fox
Can live in most of the lower and middle
Northern Hemisphere
o Red fox’s can adapt to any environment,
including; forests, farms, grassland, deserts,
mountains, suburbs, and cities
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Balance a ball utilizing their whiskers
and not their nose.
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Sometimes sea lions sniff poop to see
if that poop is their baby.
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/~nhi708/classify/animalia/chordata/ma
mmalia/pinnipedia/sealion.wav
 Medulla
 Fragmented
 Thick
 Cuticle
 Thin
 Spinus
 Cortex
 Thick
 Interesting facts
 Its scientific name (mephitis
mephitis) actually means
"noxious gas, noxious gas".
 Skunks can accurately spray the
foul smelling fluid up to ten feet.
Sarah Strauss
Skunk
Alex Reading
Cuticle
Medulla
The skunks scientific
Cortex
name is mephitis
mephitis, which actually
Cuticle
means "noxious gas,
 White, thin outer part of the
noxious gas.”
hair
Before a skunk
sprays it goes
through a
series of
warning
motions
Cortex
 Large, grey inner part of
the hair between the
Cuticle and the Medulla
Medulla
 Unseen in this picture
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/anima
ls/mammals/snow-leopard/
• Cuticle
• Cortex is thick
• Medulla is thin and
continuous
Monkey
Annemarie Perilli
Monkeys use vocalizations,
facial expressions, and
body movements to
communicate
A monkey was once convicted and
tried for having smoked in Indiana
Squirrel
o Scale pattern is imbricate, crenate
o Many squirrels use their tails as a form
of complex communication
o Their teeth never stop growing
o Gnawing helps the teeth not grow
into their neck
Cuticle
Cortex
Medulla
Sara Thurber
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Facts:
Each hair shaft is transparent
and pigment free with a
hollow core Polar bears have
black skin under their fur
Cuticle: is imbricated
Medulla: Thick Fragmented Medulla
which provides insulation for the Bear,
and also scatters the light so that even
when the bear is wet the fur still
appears white.
http://www.partnersinrhyme.com/sou
ndfx/bear_sounds/bear_grizzlybear_wa
v.shtml