What is it?
This is a microscope slide with thin slices from the canine tooth of a deceased island fox.
Researchers Stacy Baker and Juliann Schamel are looking at these thin slices through a canine tooth to see if they can discern annual growth layers. If so, this could provide an accurate way to age island foxes at death. Why is that important?
The sample slides from individual island foxes have come back from the lab in Montana. See more on the process and the annual layers.
Baker and Schamel will be analyzing the specimen slides from individuals with known ages. If the layers align with known ages, they will look at the specimens from individuals like M152 to try and determine how old these individual foxes were at death.
This important work is funded by Friends of the Island Fox through a grant from Safari West.
More about island fox research funded by Friends of the Island Fox and donors like you.