Klippel Walter E, Synstelien Jennifer A
Department of Anthropology, University of Tennessee, South Stadium Hall, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA.
J Forensic Sci. 2007 Jul;52(4):765-73. doi: 10.1111/j.1556-4029.2007.00467.x. Epub 2007 May 25.
Passive infrared technology was used to film diurnal and nocturnal scavenging behavior of brown rats and gray squirrels at the University of Tennessee's Anthropological Research Facility. This direct documentation demonstrated that brown rats modified fat-laden cancellous bone while gray squirrels generally gnawed the thicker bone cortices only after fats had leached away. A case study placed in a shaded portion of the Facility indicated the postmortem interval for initial gnawing by gray squirrels was slightly over 30 months. An examination of 53 human skeletons in the William M. Bass Forensic Skeletal Collection revealed that 10 cases had gnaw marks consistent with those made by gray squirrels. One of the 10 cases had been gnawed within 16 months of time-since-death, while the remaining nine had postmortem intervals >30 months. Additional observed modifications made to nonhuman bone by gray squirrels indicate that squirrel gnaw marks on bone can serve as a minimal estimate of time-since-death in a temperate environment similar to that of East Tennessee.
田纳西大学的人类学研究设施使用被动红外技术拍摄了褐家鼠和灰松鼠的昼夜觅食行为。这一直接记录表明，褐家鼠会啃食富含脂肪的松质骨，而灰松鼠通常只在脂肪渗出后才啃咬较厚的骨皮质。在该设施阴凉处进行的一项案例研究表明，灰松鼠开始啃咬的死后间隔时间略超过30个月。对威廉·M·巴斯法医骨骼收藏中的53具人类骨骼进行检查后发现，有10例有与灰松鼠啃咬痕迹相符的咬痕。这10例中有1例在死后16个月内被啃咬，其余9例的死后间隔时间超过30个月。灰松鼠对非人类骨骼造成的其他观察到的改变表明，在与东田纳西州类似的温带环境中，松鼠在骨头上留下的咬痕可作为死后时间的最低估计。
