Sexual dimorphism in digital dermatoglyphic traits among Sinhalese people in Sri Lanka

Abstract

BackgroundThe purpose of this study was to evaluate gender-wise diversity of digital dermatoglyphic traits in a sample of Sinhalese people in Sri Lanka.FindingsFour thousand and thirty-four digital prints of 434 Sinhalese individuals (217 males and 217 females) were examined for their digital dermatoglyphic pattern distribution. The mean age for the entire group was 23.66 years (standard deviation = 4.93 years). The loop pattern is observed more frequently (n = 2,592, 59.72%) compared to whorl (n = 1,542, 35.53%) and arch (n = 206, 4.75%) in the Sinhalese population. Females (n = 1,274, 58.71%) have a more ulnar loop pattern than males (n = 1,231, 56.73%). The plain whorl pattern is observed more frequently in males (n = 560, 25.81%) compared to females (n = 514, 23.69%).The double loop pattern is observed more frequently on the right and left thumb (digit 1) of both males and females. Pattern intensity index, Dankmeijer index and Furuhata index are higher in males.ConclusionsUlnar loop is the most frequently occurring digital dermatoglyphic pattern among the Sinhalese. All pattern indices are higher in males. To some extent, dermatoglyphic patterns of Sinhalese are similar to North Indians and other Caucasoid populations. Further studies with larger sample sizes are recommended to confirm our findings.

Dermatoglyphic Patterns Among Lebanese Medical Students of Bau

“…These results were in accordance with two studies on Indian people in 2015 [28,40], on Sri Lanka people 2013 [21] and on Thailand people 2013 [14]. Radial loop was the least frequent pattern recorded in the present study 6.4 % (table 3).…”

“…It showed highest record for the little finger of both the right and left hands in both sexes, followed by the middle and then the thumb in female students, with equal records on both the thumb and ring fingers in males. These results of ulnar loop for the little, middle and thumb fingers in the present study were consistent with the studies on Muslim population from India in 2015 [29], Nigerian students' 2011 [6], Indian people 2009 [7], and among Sinhalese people in Sri Lanka 2013 [21]. Whorls were the 2 nd frequent pattern in the present study.…”

“…It was seen on all the ten digits with a slight higher inclination to the index and middle fingers of right and left hands in both sexes. These results were in accordance with the records for the index finger [28,21,14,6] whereas the radial loops were either absent or with low records on the remaining digits. Ulnar loop was the highest frequent pattern in the present study.…”

“…Higher frequencies were recorded on the thumb, ring and index fingers. A result which was in accordance with an Indian study 2009 [7], a Sri Lanka study 2013 [21] with higher records on the ring finger, an Indian people 2015 [28,40] with also higher records on the ring finger. A 3 rd Indian study in 2015 [41] recoded high frequencies for the whorls on the index and thumb, with nearly equal ratios on the middle and ring fingers.…”

“…The previous results were in accordance with five Indian studies [8,9,28,29,30], two Nigrean studies [15,31], two Sri Lanka studies [21,32], Bengal [33], Tunisia [34], Black Americans (USA) [35], Vietnamese [36], and Caucasian [37] where loops were more prevalent than whorls. On the other hand, the present results were in contrast to the studies conducted by some authors in Australia [38], New Zealand [18], and India [7,39] where the whorls predominate over the ulnar loops in both hands of males and females.…”