The development of lipid stores in foetal sheep was examined using quantitative dissection and chloroform extraction.The accumulation of extractable lipid commenced prior to the 50th day of foetal age; growth of dissectible perirenal-abdominal adipose tissue and other non-subcutaneous depots (all brown fat) commenced at about day 70, while growth of the subcutaneous adipose tissue (white fat) commenced 2-3 weeks later.The subcutaneous fat regressed markedly from about day 115 and had virtually disappeared by full term. There were also consistent trends (not all statistically significant) in various indices of lipid status indicating that the rate of lipid accumulation was declining near term; these indices include percentage of lipid in adipose tissue, in the body as a whole and in skeletal muscle, and the rate of growth of the perirenal-abdominal adipose depot.The involution of subcutaneous adipose tissue appeared to be hastened by maternal nutritional restriction, but was not prevented by feeding the ewes ad libitum on a high-energy diet. There were also consistently lower values of the indices of lipid status in foetuses from nutritionally restricted ewes than in foetuses from ewes fed ad libitum.The early regression of the white subcutaneous adipose tissue suggests that the normal foetal lamb may be in a state of undernutrition during the last 5 or so weeks of pregnancy.Hypophysectomized foetuses, full term or post-term, were comparatively obese, with a thick layer of subcutaneous fat, a high proportion of other adipose tissue depots in the body, and a high content of chloroform-extractable lipid.