Evaluación cariotípica de un grupo de búfalos en Fredonia, Antioquia (Colombia)

buffalosare an excellent alternative for milk and meat production as well as for efficient traction. the cytogenetic characterization of buffalos was made by the r-replicatives bands system, to determined the cromosomic number and classify the animals as river buffalo or mud buffalo. we were also interested in the possible presence of hybrids since this could be an obstacle to improve breeding and reproduction programs. twentyfive animals (13 males and 12 females) were sampled. peripheral blood lymphocytes were cultured out of each one of the individuals and were stimulated with phytohemaglutinin, with a terminal pulse of 5-bromo2-deoxiuridine (brdurd) to obtain extended chromosomal and r-replicatives bands. the cytogenetic analysis of each sample revealed a diploid number of 2n=50, which classifie the animals as river buffalos (bubalus bubalis). the ordering of the homologue chromosomes allowed the classification according to the international nomenclature as follows: 1 acrocentric pair, 3 submetacentric pairs, 1 metacentric pair and 19 subtelocentric pairs including sexual chromosomes x and y. the total number of chromosomes, ordered from the largest to the samallest, were distributed in 3 groups: group a and b, autosomic and the sexual pair. no hybrids were observed in this study.