de la Peña, E., Martín, J., Carranza, J. (2020) Ultrastructural morphological features of the hair in a sexual signal: the dark ventral patch of male red deer. Journal of Zoology ISSN 0952-8369
Chemical signals play a decisive role in communication in many mammal species.In red deer (Cervus elaphus), the dark ventral patch has recently been described asa male chemical signal involved in intrasexual competition. Morphological special-izations of the hair of this area might contribute to retaining the volatile com-pounds found here. In this study, we examined differences in the ultrastructurebetween hair associated with the dark ventral patch and hairs from the dorsolateralregion of the body as a control. We obtained a gallery of images from a scanningelectron microscope to study the possible variation in the detailed anatomy as wellas the surface and pattern of cuticular scales of hairs of the two body regionsexamined. In addition, we used a 2D-3D microscope to measure hair diameter(thickness) and the shape and size of the cuticular scales. We found that the hairsof the dark ventral patch were narrower than those from the dorsolateral region.We also found a different cuticular scale pattern of the dark ventral patch hairs,suggesting a possible specialization for the retention of compounds associated withthis chemical signal. Moreover, some intersexual differences in hair morphologyalso support this idea. This study shows, for the rst time, the differentiation ofhairs related to the dark ventral patch, which contributes to our better understand-ing of this chemical communication in red deer