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BackgroundElephants are the largest and heaviest living terrestrial animals, but information on their histology is still lacking. This study provides a unique insight into the elephant’s organs and also provides a comparison between juvenile Asian elephants and adult Asian elephants or other species. Here we report on the histological structure of 24 organs, including the skin, brain (cerebrum, cerebellar hemisphere, vermis, thalamus, midbrain), spinal cord, sciatic nerve, striated skeletal muscle, cardiac muscle, bone (flat bone and long bone), cartilage (hyaline cartilage and fibrocartilage), heart (right atrium, right ventricle), blood vessels (aorta, pulmonary artery and caudal vena cava), trunk, trachea, lung, tongue, esophagus, stomach, small intestine (duodenum, jejunum, ileum), large intestine (cecum, colon, rectum), liver and pancreas, kidney, ovary, uterus (body and horn) and spleen of two juvenile Asian elephants.MethodsTissue sections were stained with Harris’s hematoxylin and eosin Y.ResultsWhile almost all structures were similar to those of other species or adult elephants, some structures were different from other mammalian species, such as: plexiform bone was found in flat bone only; a thin trachealismuscle was observed in the trachea; and no serous or mucinous glands were found in the submucosa of the trachea.DiscussionHistological information from various organs can serve as an important foundation of basal data for future microanatomical studies, and help in the diagnosis and pathogenesis in sick elephants or those with an unknown cause of death.

Age estimation using telomere length is an alternative tool that could facilitate the casework in forensic investigations. Although blood can be used in the measurement of telomere length in order to estimate chronological age and/or biological age, the use of blood does present certain potential limitations such as the possibility of infection, the influence of medication, chemicals or the level of stress a subject might have been exposed to, all of which can

Bones or skeletal remains can be used to answer a number of questions related to species, sex, age or cause of death. However, studies involving vertebrae have been limited as most were performed on skulls or long bones. Here, we have stated the hypothesis that the morphometry of cervical vertebrae can be used for species identification and body size estimation among marine and land mammals. The cervical vertebrae from eight and 14 species of marine and land mammals were used to collect morphometric data. Cluster dendrogram, principal component analysis, discriminant analysis and linear regression were used to analyse the data. The results indicate that, based on an index of C4 to C7, there were 13 out of 22 species for which identity could be correctly predicted in 100% of the cases. The correlations between cervical vertebrae parameters (height, width and length of centrum) in marine (average R2 = 0.87, p < .01) and land (average R2 = 0.51, p < .01) mammals were observed. These results indicate that vertebral morphometrics could be used for species prediction and verification of body weight in both marine and land mammals.

Species identification is essential and necessary in the forensic sciences. This case study aims to identify animal species using unidentified bone samples found in snake feces with the use of inter-simple sequence repeat markers coupled with high resolution melting analysis (ISSR-HRM). In this case study, six ISSR primers were used and compared with lemur blood. The results of this study indicate that the derivative melting curve established from two bones and the lemur blood sample displayed a similar melting temperature. Additionally, D-loop sequencing of the bones and blood samples were checked against the GenBank database. We found that the samples belonged to a black-and-white ruffed lemur (Varecia variegata) with percent identity values of 99.54 and 99.85, respectively. Thus, ISSR-HRM has been effectively used for species identification, particularly when results can be compared with the target species.