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| Location: |
World |
| Subject: |
Anatomy - Glands |
| Species: |
All Rhino Species |
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Species other than C.simum. In Diceros bicornis, the form closest to Ceratotherium, preputial papillae comparable to those obtaining in Ceratotherium are not present. L?nnberg (1912) reported no such structures in his specimen of adult Diceros penis, nor could the writer detect any in the spirit-preserved penis of a 4 years old animal specially examined. The preputial skin of Diceros is of a uniform clove-brown colour, and is nowhere studded by white (or other) papillae. Histologically this skin manifests very numerous sweat glands, all of apocrine type, associated with an abundance of well developed myoepithelial cells, but a complete absence of ecerine sweat glands and of lymphoid tissue. The 1)reputial apocrine sweat glands of Diceros contain a relatively large quantity of solid protein preci~ pitate, which may be responsible for the odorous nature of the region. (The sebaceous glands present appear to manufacture a partly protein, partly lipoid, secretion, which may act both as a lubricant and as a sexual attraction). The glans penis and its lateral processes in Diceros are wholly devoid of recognizable gland orifices : the more proximal preputial skin (that alongside the ventral frenum) displays, in short rows, a limited number of orifices of pinpoint size, which open flush with the surface and are the mouths of hair follicles into which open the local apocrine sweat glands.
Nothing has been recorded either in the standard zoological treatises (e. g. Grass?, 1955 ; Ottow, 1955) or in particular monographs regarding the occurence of specialized preputial glands in the Asian rhinoceroses. Thus Owen (1862) and Freund (1930) make no mention of such structures in Rhinoceros unicornis, neither do Beddard and Treves (1887) concerning Rhinoceros sondaicus nor Forbes (1881) concerning Didermocerus surnatrensis.
So far as is known, therefore, the distinctive preputial glands described herein for Ceratotherium are without counterpart among the remaining members of the Rhinocerotidae.
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The preputial glands of Ceratotherium
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