Sex and race differences in finger ridge‐count correlations

Abstract

Correlations between ridge-counts on the ten fingers were compared by race and sex in 11 samples representing Negroes and Caucasians: five from subsaharan Africa, one American Black, three European, one American White and one from India. The samples of European ancestry showed no consistent sex difference in mean correlation, although female American Whites significantly exceeded males. In three of the six Negro samples and in the Parsis of India males showed significantly higher average correlations than females. The pattern of sex and race differences suggests that the sex chromosomes, particularly the Y chromosome, play a role in dermal ridge development.

Asymmetry and intraindividual diversity in digital dermatoglyphics of Bulgarians

“…These findings agree completely with our revious results (Karev, between asymmetX t e five finger pairs, their levels 1988a,b). Althoug R no support has been found for X-linkage of the genes determining the TRC (Matsuda, 19731, it has been shown in sex-chromosome aneuploidies that supernumerary X and Y chromosomes might have an almost predictable ef'fect upon the finger ridge-counts (Barlow, 1973;Jantz, 1977). Though the present study is not directly concerned with the genetic bases of asymmetry, it is tempting to hypothesize that the sex chromosomes exert their effect on the pattern size simultaneouslj with a considerable effect upon the mediolateral developmental gradients, causing in such a way well-expressed sex differences in the directional asymmetry of the two oppositely orientated finger ridge-counts.…”

“…In other words, any general buffering capacity is apparently absent not only in widely different characters in a given species (Van Valen, 19621, but even in such correlated (Holt, 1959;Jantz, 1977) ones as the separate finger ridge-counts. If such is the case, it would be of interest to see whether pathological conditions would increase the radial fluctuating asymmetry randomly over the finger pairs, keeping, at a higher level, the pattern of distribution presented here.…”

Sex differences from fingerprint ridge density in Chinese and Malaysian population

“…With the inference of the sex of the suspect from the prints available at the crime scene, the burden of the investigating officer is reduced. Previous researchers have explored the possibility of gender differentiation using fingerprints [3][4][5][6]. Acree reported higher fingerprint ridge densities in females among Caucasian and African American population [7].…”

Palmar Intertriradial Ridge Counts in Sardinians

“…On the whole correlations are greater in females in the 68% of the cases, in males in the 27% and equals in the 5% of the cases. The existence of sex differences in the correlations may suggest that the sex chromosomes may be involved in the control of dermal ridge development (just as suggested for the fingers by Jantz, 1977). For homologous counts the greatest correlation is found between a-d counts in both sexes, for non homologous counts between b-c and a-d, in both sexes and sides.…”