Constitutive heterochromatin in the fallow deer ( Cervus dama )

Previous investigations on the karyotype of Cervus dama L. used conventional staining techniques (Gustavsson 1965; Hsu and Benirschke 1967; Wurster and Benirschke 1967; Gustavsson and Sundt 1968) and found a somatic, diploid chromosome number of 2n = 68, XX resp. XY. More recently, fluorescence and banding techniques which allow to differentiate between single chromosomes were used by Neitzel (1982), Wang and Du (1983), Karlik (1984) and Mayr et al. (1987a, 1987b). These investigators have used a wide spectrum of banding techniques, but one of the most helpful techniques for studying the constitutive heterochromatin, the C-banding-technique, has not been applied. The purpose of the present paper is to study the constitutive heterochromatin of Cervus dama with this technique and to compare the results with the relatively large ammount of data published for the red deer {Cervus elaphus, Goldoni et al. 1984; Herzog 1985, 1987b). Lymphocyte cultures of 25 fallow deer {Cervus dama L.) from Niedersachsen (Federal Republic of Germany) were laid out in order to obtain metaphase chromosomes. The procedures of blood culture and chromosome analysis followed modified Standard pro-