Making use of capuchins' propensities to obtain hair samples for DNA analyses

Genotyping wild and captive capuchins has become a priority and hair bulbs have high quality DNA. Here, we describe a method to non-invasively collect fresh-plucked strands of hair that exploits capuchins' manual dexterity and propensity to grasp and extract food. The apparatus consists of a transparent tube baited with food. Its extraction requires the monkey to place its forearm in contact with double-sided tape applied on the inner surface of the tube entrance. The "tube" method, successfully implemented with captive (N=23) and wild (N=21) capuchins, allowed us to obtain hair bulbs from most individuals and usable genomic DNA was extracted even from a single bulb.

Tipo Pubblicazione: 
Articolo
Author or Creator: 
Elisabetta Visalberghi1
Serena Cavallero2
Dorothy M. Fragaszy3
Patricia Izar4
Rodrigo Mendes Aguiar4
Valentina Truppa1
Publisher: 
Conservation International do Brasil., Belo Horizonte, Brasile
Source: 
Neotropical primates 22 (2015): 89–93.
info:cnr-pdr/source/autori:Elisabetta Visalberghi1, Serena Cavallero2, Dorothy M. Fragaszy3, Patricia Izar4, Rodrigo Mendes Aguiar4, Valentina Truppa1/titolo:Making use of capuchins' propensities to obtain hair samples for DNA analyses/doi:/rivista:Neotro
Date: 
2015
Resource Identifier: 
http://www.cnr.it/prodotto/i/366181
Language: 
Eng
ISTC Author: 
Ritratto di Valentina Truppa
Real name: