Keywords: Ear morphology, ear prints, personal identification, forensic science, North Indian population, ear variations.
The external ear, particularly the pinna, is a crucial physical trait that may aid in personal identification in criminal investigations. Oil on the ear can deposit its impression on surfaces mobile phone screens, glass windows. The ear morphology can be affected by geographical regions. The current study aims to look into variations in ear morphology and analyse ear impressions to have better understanding of their significance in personal identification. The study involved 100 participants, aged between 15 - 30 years from Ramnagar area, Nainital district, Uttarakhand state, northern India. The morphological features such as shape of the ear, size, earlobe shape, concha size, attachment of the earlobe was studied. The ear prints were recorded using ink method and Photographs. Further, the ear impressions were analysed using Image J software to measure data such as ear length, ear breadth, earlobe length, earlobe breadth, concha length, concha breadth. The findings showed that oval shaped ears are common among males and round shaped ears in females with other shapes like rectangle and triangle also present. Similarly, the most common ear lobe shape was square in males and tongue shaped in females. Females had slightly larger averages of ear length and width than males. Significant differences were found between males and females right ear length (p-value =0.05) and right concha length(p-value=0.01). The study contributed to existing research by highlighting the variability in ear morphology among Uttarakhand Region of India. It further emphasizes the need of understanding and analysing these differences in personal identification.