Difficulty in visual sex identification: a case study on bank voles

The present study aims at quantifying the error in visual sexing of live-trapped bank voles and evaluating if animal body weight and experience of field workers affected the ability to determine the sex of voles. The error in sex attribution involved 25.6% of non-reproductive individuals, pointing out the need to validate the field sex identification. Body weight of voles did not affect the ability of trappers to visually discriminate the sex of...