EAR PRINT

                                                     Ear Print

The first ear print identification of a criminal was made in Switzerland in 1965. 
The outer ear is constituted of a cartilaginous bone structure covered with teguments.
The cartilage lamina is folded in on itself, forming protuberances and depressions that give the outer ear its characteristic shape. The ear print is a two-dimensional reproduction of the parts of the outer ear that have touched a specific surface, and that are usually the most prominent regions of the same, that is to say, are most commonly the helix, antihelix, tragus, and antitragus The most common reason for the prints being left is simple: criminals that are going to burgle a house lean their ear against the door to make sure that there is nobody inside and leave their print on it.
 The prints may be more or less fragmentary, marked, or well-defined depending on diverse factors such as the degree of greasiness of the skin, the application of the
face or hair to the same area, or even the volume of sound that they were trying to hear.
It is subsequently necessary to collect the print with a glass slide or methacrylate base. It has been reported that it is possible to determine approximately the height of the suspect by means of the ear print, on the basis of the floor-to-print distance, with certain corrections.
In general, three methods have traditionally been used for the comparison of prints: superposition (placing one print over another with transparencies and comparing them); direct comparison; and dissection, dividing the print into sections and interchanging them to check the coincidences and superposition.
The degree to which an ear print represents the original ear can be affected by diverse factors. The size itself can vary, as can the inter-distances between the different points of reference depending on the degree of pressure exerted.
VALIDITY OF THE EAR PRINT The limitations of the method are obvious, and relate to the uniqueness of the ear print. Furthermore, it is possible for one single ear to leave different prints. This may be due to the manner in which the prints are made, principally, as has been mentioned, to the degree of pressure or the angle at which the ear was applied to the surface, but also to anatomical modifications of the outer ear.