We have some female camels with male behavior, large clitoris, small /or absence of one or both ovaries and suggestion of intraabdominal testicular structures. All cases are nullipara. Hermaphroditism is suggested. What are the possible techniques that we could be use to confirm our suggestion? Slaughtering is not possible in most cases, because the animals are very expensive.
Interesting topic Mr Ahmed. When did it happen?
You need to measure serum testosterone-estradiol level.
Intersex mammals can be chimeric if gestation began with with 2 or more embryos/fetuses in utero. One should find mixed blood cell karyotypes if this happened. It happens often in cattle with one male and one female fetus -- the female will be a Freemartin about 90% of the time and will have underdeveloped reproductive organs and tissues. These females almost always have a shorter-than-normal vagina at a young age. One will not necessarily see differences in hormone levels until the approximate age of puberty, and even then findings can be ambiguous. It might be useful to give younger animals FSH and/or FSH+LH and measure estradiol and testosterone, but even then it is not clear how to interpret the values unless you challenge known females and males at the same time for use in comparing findings.
Thank you very much Dr Britt for your clarification. Actually, our condition in camels are not a twinning case, it is a very rare condition in camels. Also, all cases, about 15 cases, are infertile, nullipara, over the age of maturity (> 6 years), showing different degree of male behavior. In addition, many abnormalities have been seen in the female genitalia, mainly in the external part (vulav and clitoris) and sometimes the ovaries. I understood from your answer that karyotyping is not efficient in cases with no history of twins. Now, it is not clear for me, what could I make for these cases . Hermaphroditism is not yet recorded in camels.
Are these from same herd? Related genetically? Since the genital tract develops in utero before birth, this condition must be related to their embryonic or early fetal development OR they may have been exposed to some strong androgenic effect after birth. We have treated infertile heifers and cows with high doses of testosterone for use in detection of estrus, and some of these develop strong masculine behavior and have enlarged clitoris. Finally, do the 15 cases come from a population of thousands or hundreds?
Dear Prof Britt, thanks for your high interest and for your help to discover the origin of the current phenomenon. The cases did not origin from one herd but from different herd, which located in different areas in KSA. We observed these cases from about 7300 cases examined in our clinic. Attached history did not indicate a previous treatment with steroids. They are not race camels.
Ahmed, This is an interesting data set, and you need to publish it. It represents about 0.2% of the cases you have seen, but it represents a significant number of camels. Do camels ever have twins or multiple ovulations? It might be rare, but it could account for some of these events. You might stimulate interest from others by publishing. I recall finding an intersex reproductive tract from a pig while collecting specimens for teaching. Also, we once collected ovaries form a porcine sow that had 168 ovulations (corpora lutea) without stimulation--and they appeared normal. Here is a reference you might wish to look at if available. If not, let me know and I will get it for you: Mol Reprod Dev. 1996 Nov;45(3):392-402. Aetiology of intersexuality in female (XX) pigs, with novel molecular interpretations. Hunter RH.
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