Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 March 2009
The present work extends the information on the skin thickness of cattle and shows that generalizations made in previous work were only partly correct, for there are significant differences only between the skin thickness of the Zebu ‘races’ of tropical cattle and Bos taurus.
Again there appeared to be no significant difference between animals of different ages within breeds.
The work confirmed that cattle of eleven tropical breeds comprising four of the major ‘races’ of African indigenous cattle have a significantly thinner papillary layer than temperate breeds, and this was very strongly correlated with their superior heat toleration.
Further support based on wider premises was therefore given to suggestions made by Dowling regarding the importance of the histology of the skin in heat toleration.