Ammotragus lervia: barbary sheep or barbary goat?

Abstract

1. 1. Thirty blood proteins from one aoudad Ammotragus lervia, 15 goats, Capra hircus, and 302 sheep, Ovis aries, have been examined by electrophoresis in acrylamide and starch gel. 2. 2. Ammotragus has 5 distinctly sheep-like biochemical characters, 5 goat-like characters, 7 characters in common with both sheep and goat, and 10 unique characters. 3. 3. Several protein markers differ in electrophoretic mobility in this set of three species and, thus, are potentially useful in further studies: transferrin, minor serum proteins observed in acrylamide gradient gels, slow α 2-macroglobulin, caeruloplasmin, serum glucosidase, “malic enzyme”, 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase, erythrocyte NADH diaphorases I and II, glucose-phosphate isomerase and superoxide dismutase. 4. 4. Among ovicaprines, serum aryl-esterase and cholinesterase display variability in substrate specificity than in electrophoretic mobility. Ammotragus serum cholinesterase may be more primitive than either sheep or goat cholinesterase in that it is more active on butyrylthiocholine and on α-naphthyl acetate.