Establishment of the gender of rabbits by craniometric and morphological features of the skull

Abstract

Introduction. Sexual dimorphism in rabbits is poorly expressed, which creates a number of difficulties in determining the sex of the animal. The need to determine sex arises during forensic veterinary examination, archaeological and special morphological studies, as well as in the study of age and breed variability of animals using craniological material. This issue is especially relevant for veterinary and sanitary examination, since the sex of the animal can affect the quality of wool or the taste of meat, which affects the quality of the products obtained.Objects and methods. The objects of the study were skulls (n = 4) of Californian breed ofrabbits and skulls (n = 4) of Soviet chinchilla breed. The stages of the study were: the creation of 8 bone preparations by boiling them in water with the addition of bicarbonate of soda, bleaching in a 3% hydrogen peroxide solution, comparison and morphometry.Results. Based on the study, it is possible to identify craniological features characteristic of male and female rabbits: the angle of the lower jaw in males is thicker and more massive, has a more pronounced masticatory fossa; supraorbital processes of male rabbits are more branched and wide; the zygomatic process of the zygomatic bone has a thin elongated shape in females, and a wide oval in males; on the horizontal plate of the palatine bone of femalerabbits there is large number of holes; in males, the lattice opening resembles a cello in shape, and the pituitary gland resembles an oval; the occipito-sphenoid fusion in male rabbits is convex, and the occipital crest has a thickening. Thanks to the use of several breeds of rabbits in the experiment, it can be proved that these patterns relate to sex, and not to breed. The results of the study can be used to determine the sex of an animal by the skull or its fragments, which is important for forensic veterinary examination when using a craniological method for determining the sex of various animal species.