The breadths of epidermal ridges on the finger tips and palms: A study of variation

Abstract

FOUR FIGURESEven a casual inspection of the palmar and plantar surfaces suffices to demonstrate that there are regional variations in the breadths of epidermal ridges. Ridges of the sole are generally coarser than those of the hand (Galton, 1892) ; variations in different regions are apparent in the hand and foot alike, the prominent distinction being increased ridge breadth in the proximal territories. When corresponding regions of different individuals are compared it is observed that ridges tend to be coarser in men than in women, that they coarsen in prenatal and postnatal growth, and that some differences occur among individuals of the same sex and body size. Curiously enough, the literature contains little more than casual statements on the subject of ridge breadth, most often presented as in this brief introductory comment without quantitative data.The most extensive available information relates to the growth of ridges : Kolliker (1848-1849), Kollmann (1883), A. F. Hecht ( '24). The findings of these authors are in close agreement, and Hecht 's figures are cited as representative. The following are average breadths of single ridges, in fingertip patterns alone: three premature infants 0.15 mm.; seven newborn infants 0.18 mm. ; then, without giving the numbers of subjects involved, 10 years 0.30-0.35 mm.; adult women 0.40-0.50 mm. ; adult men 0.50 mm. It will be noted that Hecht 127

Sex differences in the thumbprint ridge density in a central Indian population

“…Thus, even when the areas analysed for thumbprint ridge density in our study differ from that of the earlier studies, [2][3][4][5][6][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][22][23][24][25][26][27][28] the basic quantitative differences remain the same, i.e., females have a higher finger (thumb) print ridge density than males which is in accordance with earlier studies on different ethnic groups. 2,[5][6][7][8][13][14][15][16][17][18][22][23][24][25][26][27][28] Ridge thickness and furrows are the two important factors which determine the density of ridges. Cummins et al, 24 Ohler et al, 25 Kralik et al 26 and Moore 28 worked on the ridge thickness in fingerprints and showed that males have coarser finger ridges than females which suggests that males will have less ridges in a given area than females and thus a lower ridge density.…”

Natural scenes in tactile texture

“…One possibility is that fingerprints enhance textural features at a spatial scale similar to that of the fingerprints themselves, whose spatial scale is smaller than that of the innervation density of the skin (ϳ0.5 mm vs. ϳ1 mm). Given the welldocumented variation in fingerprint layout over the human population (Acree 1999;Cummins et al 1941;Ohler and Cummins 1942), our results further raise the possibility that fingerprint geometry might affect perceptual capabilities in texture perception, as does finger size in fine spatial discrimination (Peters et al 2009). …”

Evaluation of asymmetry using thumbprint minutiae among Hausa population of Kano State, Nigeria

“…This may explain possible variation of the ridge minutiae between male and female in this population. Number of studies reported that the ridges of right hand were found to be coarser than the left hand (Cummins et al, 1994). It was evident that left hand have greater number of ridges than in the right (Gutie´rrez-Redomero et al, 2007) and finer ridges than the right fingers (Mundorff et al, 2014).…”