Researchers in Brazil have invented a genius method for noninvasively collecting hair samples from wild jaguars using only a common household item. Even more amazingly, the method draws upon a striking similarity between jaguars and house cats. 

The Brazilian Amazon is the largest remaining contiguous jaguar habitat in the world, serving as home to an estimated 10,000 wild jaguars, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society Brazil. As an apex predator, jaguars play an important role in maintaining the health of the Amazonian ecosystem.   

Scientists studying the impact that human activities like mining and urban expansion have on Brazilian jaguars use hair samples to monitor the levels of toxins such as mercury in the animals' bodies, according to Discover Wildlife.

However, collecting these samples can be difficult and dangerous, both for researchers and for the cats. Scientists sometimes need to trap the jaguar in order to collect a hair sample from a specific animal.

To improve these practices, researchers have attempted various noninvasive methods of hair collection, leaving substances like Velcro and sticky tape in areas where they knew the jaguars liked to hang out. But nothing seemed to work. 

"These big cats are agile, intelligent, and sensitive," said Paul Raad, founder and president of the Institute for Mitigation of Environmental Problems with Traditional Communities and Jaguars, per Discover Wildlife. 

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Raad received inspiration from an unexpected source.  

"Then one day, I got into a friend's car and she apologized for the mess her dogs made, saying, 'I can't get their hair out of this floor mat — it's stuck!'" Raad told Discover Wildlife. "That's when the light bulb went off: We need mats made of that material." 

Raad and his team then returned to the jaguars' favorite areas with similar mats, placing them on branches and in other locations where they knew the jaguars would go. 

The results were even better than Raad and his colleagues had hoped for. 

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"They love lying on the rugs and scratching them, which is exactly what we want, as it helps them leave hair behind," Raad explained to Discover Wildlife. Raad expressed amazement at "how much they resemble house cats in this regard!"

Using trail cameras set up to monitor the mats, researchers were able to identify the individual jaguar from which the samples had come, making this relatively cheap, simple hack a win-win for the researchers and the animals.

Because the newly discovered method for collecting hair samples involves such an inexpensive, widely available product, it puts such research within the reach of organizations that previously could not afford it. 

"Until now, biological banks and sample access were usually restricted to large international NGOs with significant funding, often not local," Raad said of nongovernmental organizations. "We wanted to democratize jaguar science so that it doesn't remain in the hands of only a few."

In some ways, Raad believed that the relative lack of funding available to Brazilian scientists has made them more resourceful, forcing them to rely on "abundant creativity and determination" instead of money. 

"To do science, sometimes all you need is ingenuity and dedication," Raad added, per Discover Wildlife. 

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