programme

Tigers can no more change their stripes than leopards can change their spots. That's a good thing too, for their unchanging patterns, as individually distinct as a human fingerprint, make it easier to track any single tiger over time. That process is about to become even simpler with a computer programme that creates a three-dimensional model of a tiger's skin and can compare different shots of an animal taken at different times or angles. The programme is the brainchild of Lex Hilby from an organisation called Conservation Research and it could allow conservationists to track surviving…