Abstract
We report the chemical analysis of the body odour collected from three tranquilised wild tigers (Panthera tigris tigris), from the Sundarban Biosphere Reserve in India. The electron micrograph of hairs from two tigers has been elucidated. A few saturated, unbranched fatty acid methyl esters like methyl tetradecanoate, methyl pentadecanoate, methyl hexadecanoate, methyl stearate, methyl eicosanoate and methyl eruciate were identified. A few benzenoid compounds were also detected. The possible significance of body odour and hair structure is discussed.
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Acknowledgements
The work was supported partially by University Grants Commission and Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Govt. of India. We are grateful to PCCF, Dept. of Forest, Govt. of West Bengal for his kind permission and to the staff of the forest department who regularly took their risk to capture the wild, dangerous but gracious creature of the nature.
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Poddar-Sarkar, M., Ray, S., Chowdhury, S.P., Samanta, G., Raha, P., Brahmachary, R.L. (2013). On the Body Odour of Wild-Caught Mangrove-Marsh Bengal Tiger of Sundarban. In: East, M., Dehnhard, M. (eds) Chemical Signals in Vertebrates 12. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5927-9_17
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5927-9_17
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