International Journal of Medical Toxicology & Legal Medicine

Toe prints are most commonly found in crime scenes and may provide valuable information, even though full footprints are not available in these instances. Toe ridge density is an important indicator for gender dimorphism and ethnicity is an important factor to be considered whoever conduct the anthropological research since people from different ethnic groups bear different morphological features and racial characteristics. Hence, the present study investigated the gender variation based on toe prints ridge density among Melanau ethnic group in Borneo Island, Malaysia. The study sample consists of 100 males and 100 females, mostly living in Borneo Island, Malaysia. Following the standard procedure, the toe prints were collected for analysis. The study used five toes in each foot print and each toe print was examined in a defined area of 5mm x 5mm square and calculated the ridge density for ten toe prints for a subject. The ridge density analysis revealed that the right toe prints reflected higher gender variation frequently in third toe followed by fourth toe, little toe, great toe and least variation in second toe. The left toe prints showed gender variation in the descending order of fourth toe, third toe, little toe, great toe and second toe. It is concluded that the toe print ridge density may be used as a valuable tool to show gender variation in the study population.