Legional anatomy of swine, 7: Muscls of forefoot of paraguayan mule pigs
1998
Amino, T. (Yamaguchi Univ. (Japan). Faculty of Agriculture) | Taniguchi, T. | Endo, K. | Oka-Obara, H.A. | Makita, T.
Feral hogs in Paraguay often have mule-foot or syndactylous of manus. They are mixed with domestic pigs. Therefore, approximately 10 % of pigs at a slaughter house in the area of Asuncion have one to four mule-foot. They call those mule-foot hogs as culeburc or donkey pigs. Osteologically only phalanx distalis of the 3 and 4 digits are fused. In this report, the muscle of those fused manus were disected. The muscles of mule-foot were not like those of horse or mule. Not all feet of a given culeburc were syndactylous. An incompletely fused one has a shallow sulcus on the surface of its ungula. More complete mule-foot occurred in forefoot than in hind foot. For example, a given pueburo could have two mule foot in forefeet, one normal foot and one incompletely fused foot in hind legs. It is not known why forefoot is likely to have more fused ungula than hindfoot. Whether the fusion of phalanx distalis indicates or not the process of evolution of digits of horses and mules remains to be elucidated. (With sincere thanks of the present authors to the staffs of faculty of veterinary medicine, Asunsion University, JICA Paraguay Office, Ministerio de Agriculturyy Gandera, Asuncion, Paraguay., for their assistance to this progect.)
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