Use of Taxidermy Samples to Generate Forensically Informative Nucleotide Sequences of Globally threatened Species of Small cats including the Species from India by using 12SrRNA and Cytochrome b gene

Author: Archana Bahuguna* and Priyanka Negi

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Abstract

Although the research on carnivore ecology, including molecular studies are commendable but the molecular study on small cats remain very limited in India as well as in other Asian countries for providing scientific proof for Wildlife forensic and for molecular ecology. As it is difficult to get the samples of small cats for molecular study because of small population size and rare status thus the present study using the taxidermy samples highlight the importance of museum specimens as DNA source material for threatened taxa. Most of the research on cats being skewed more towards big cats and small cats are almost ignored. Small cats are known to be widely spread across globe and they are more specialized than big cats in terms of resource selection. Major challenges to felid populations are habitat loss, the use of felids for the pet, poaching for wildlife parts and products, disappearance of natural prey and cat human conflicts leading to decrease in population of cat species and mak

Keywords

12SrRNA, Cytochrome b, small cats, wildlife forensic, taxidermy samples.

Conclusion

As the decline of small cats is occurring worldwide due to habitat fragmentation, and poaching, the present study is useful to provide the strong scientific proofs for the court and also useful for molecular ecology. The study inferred that taxidermy samples could be used effectively for generating molecular reference data for threatened taxa. Geographical signatures developed by haplotype networking could help in tracking the origin of seized materials and for implementation of CITES and other Wildlife protection laws and regulation.

References

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How to cite this article

Archana Bahuguna and Priyanka Negi (2022). Use of Taxidermy Samples to Generate Forensically Informative Nucleotide Sequences of Globally threatened Species of Small cats including the Species from India by using 12SrRNA and Cytochrome b gene. Biological