Abstract
The present study was aimed to evaluate the skull measurements of 3 phenotypes of camels found in Saudi Arabia in Al-Qassim region, Al-Wadha (white), Malha (black) and Sha'alah (brown). The craniometric measurements in addition to the skull, cranial and facial indices undertaken in the 3 phenotypes of the Camelus dromedarius were the skull length (47.45, 51.50 and 46.10 cm), viscerocranial length (28.34, 29.42 and 24 23 cm), cranial length (19 25, 22.08 and 21.87 cm), maximum width of neurocranium (14 04, 15.96 and 12 65 cm), maximum zygomatic width (22 40, 22 81 and 18.53 cm), skull weight (2245 92, 2668.90 and 2291.61 gm), skull index (47.20, 44 28 and 40 21), cranial index (73.16, 72 49 and 58.09), facial index (79 25, 77 67 and 76.62) and cranial volume (250 00, 311 20 and 263.60 ml) were the respective measurements in the mature camels. The anterior basicranial angle averaged about 199degrees, 244degrees and 198degrees in the Al-Wadha, Malha and Sha'alah camels, respectively. The posterior basicranial angle values ranged between 95degrees, 112degrees and 110degrees, respectively. The results revealed significant variation between the three phenotypes under investigation.