The Study of Sexual Dimorphism in The Morphometric Characteristics of the Skull of the Male and Female Zell Sheep

Introduction: The aim of the present study was to evaluate the morphometric differences of the skull in male and female Zell sheep. Methods: For this purpose, 30 heads (15 adult males and 15 adult female) of Zell sheep breed were collected from the local slaughter-house. The skulls were prepared using the boiling maceration according to the usual techniques, and the mandible was dissociated from temporomandibular joint. Then 19 parameters of the skull and 13 parameters of the mandible were measured using a digital Vernier caliper. The results of this study were analyzed by SPSS software and independent samples T-Test (p < 0.05). Results: The results showed that, although the distance of Lateral alveolar root to mental foramen were significantly higher in male Zell sheep than female Zell sheep (with the accuracy of 83.33%), in other cases, no statistically significant difference was observed. our result revealed that the mandible can Zell sheep skull and mandible were the smallest ones among the other studied sheep breeds. Conclusion: we suggest that the distance of Lateral alveolar root to mental foramen on mandible can be a good landmark in sex estimating in Zell sheep.