BREED DIFFERENCES AND INTRA-BREED GENETIC-VARIABILITY OF DERMATOGLYPHIC PATTERN OF CATTLE

Muzzle dermatoglyphics - n. ridges, granula and vibrissae - were analysed in various breeds. Differences among these in most traits were significant. Herd effects accounted for about 1/10 of the variance and heritability, estimated by combining sib, halfsib and dam-daughter correlations corrected for herd differences was above 50 % for ridges and vibrissae and about 30 % for granula. Genetic correlations between ridge counts, and n. vibrissae in different nose fields, respectively, were high as they were between the former and n. granula but they were negative or very low between vibrissae and the other two traits. Asymmetry among the counts in the two muzzle sides was significant for nearly all traits, Heritabilities were low, around 10 to 20 %, and the crossbreds had less asymmetry than their parental breeds. The correlations among asymmetry measures were low.