Khadafi was looks-conscious until the end

Thursday brought to an abrupt end the months-long hunt for Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi. But as authorities seek to piece together a timeline of his final moments, some striking reminders of his extravagant lifestyle have emerged.

The Washington Post reports Friday that when investigators performed DNA testing on Gadhafi's body, they learned that the vainglorious strongman was wearing a wig. Interim Prime Minster Mahmoud Jibril told the Post that an autopsy team took samples of Gadhafi's blood, saliva and hair--and soon discovered that the hair did not actually belong to the former dictator. Gadhafi's body is now at a mosque outside of Sirte.

The former dictator was known for his vanity--in March, a Brazilian plastic surgeon came forward with an account of a four hour cosmetic procedure he'd performed on Gadhafi in 1995. "He told me that he had been in power for 25 years at that time, and that he did not want the young people of his nation to see him as an old man," Dr. Liacyr Ribeiro told the AP. "I recommended a facelift, but he refused." Gadhafi received hair plugs and had fat from his belly injected into his face to counteract the appearance of aging. The operation occurred in the middle of the night in Gadhafi's compound in Tripoli. He insisted on local anesthesia, so he could remain awake during the procedure; midway through the surgery, he paused to snack on a hamburger.

Gadhafi's hair, real or fake, was a signature. In a 2009 piece anointing the dictator a style icon, Vanity Fair said that Gadhafi's tonsorial look betrayed the influence of wild-maned rock impresario Phil Spector. The magazine put together a slide show of the dictator's fashions--a "homage to a sartorial genius of our time."