Quantitative finger dermatoglyphics in a Spanish population (Tierra de Campos)

This study deals with the finger ridge counts and the distribution of their frequencies drawn from a Spanish sample consisting of 833 school-children (417 males and 416 females), which has been collected from the geographical area of Tierra de Campos. Paired t-test and Student-t-test were used to explore bimanual and sexual differences, respectively. The results showed: a bimanual asymmetry marked by significantly higher right hand ridge count for thumb and index pairs in both males and females, ridge counts of males are always higher than the corresponding values of females; the differences being significant excepting for right and left index and for left ring-finger. The frequency distribution of TFRC was slightly, but significantly, different from normality only in males, as Kolmogorov test showed. A great homogeneity between values for TFRC of males and females from Tierra de Campos and those of the available Spanish and Portuguese populations has been found, the values being high not only in the variation ranges of the Spanish and Portuguese populations, but also in the ranges reported for other European populations.