Morphological diversity of female camel (Camelus dromedarius) populations in Morocco.

Fourteen body measurements of 132 adult female camels belonging to three populations Guerzni (60), Khouari (28), and Marmouri (44) reared in 38 herds of 8 provinces of Southern Morocco were studied to identify homogeneous groups according to their conformation. The measurements were chest girth (CG), hump girth (HG), height at withers (HW), body length (BL), fore limb length (FLL), chest width (CW), chest depth (CD), fore hoof circumference (FHC), head length (HL), distance between eyes (DE), ear length (EL), neck length (NL), neck circumference (NC), and tail length (TL). The three populations were compared according to their mean body measurements and through multivariate analyses.