Gender Variation in Palmar Dermatoglyphics among Students of University of Ilorin, Nigeria

The study was designed to focus on the variation in dermatoglyphics of randomly selected students of University of Ilorin along gender, ethnic and religious lines. The science of dermatoglyphics has evolved over many years and it has been employed in resolutions of crimes, and identifications of persons. Unilateral digital prints of 215 undergraduate students of University of Ilorin comprising of 137 males and 77 females between ages of 16 and 36 years were studied in the course of this work. The result was analyzed using ANOVA and Chi-Square was used to determine any level of association. P?0.05 was considered significant. The findings of the study indicate that there are gender and age differences in relation to total ridge count and pattern intensity index among the sampled population. However, religion and ethnicity have no significant role in dermatoglyphics indices of the studied population.

Key Words: Dermatoglyphics, Total Ridge Count, Pattern Intensity Index, Gender, Religion, Ethnicity