Identification of laboratory animals

Abstract

Laboratory animals are used for scientific investigations, and also for special breeding programmes. In all cases the need for an accurate and unmistakable means of identification is self-evident. The smaller laboratory animals, such as rats and mice, are used in rather large numbers, and to identify all individuals positively might raise serious practical problems were it not for the fact that the animals are caged, either singly or in small groups. It is much easier to put a label on a cage than to ask a small animal to carry an identity disc, and if the animal is very small the marker has also to be so small that it can carry very little information.

W. Lane-Petter, MA, MB, BChir, FIBiol, Hon MPS, is a graduate of Cambridge University and after a time in general practice served throughout the war in the RAMC. After the war he spent three years as a Home Office Inspector under the Cruelty to Animals Act of 1876, and fifteen years as Director of the MRC Laboratory Animals Centre. He spent some years in the laboratory animals industry before returning to Cambridge in 1972. He was Secretary General of the International Committee on Laboratory Animals (ICLA) from 1956 to 1969, and is now an honorary member of ICLA, as well as a vice-president of the Institute of Animal Technicians (formerly president) and of the Institute of Science Technology. He has written extensively, and also edited a number of works, about laboratory animals and related subjects.