Comparative Bone Histology of Adult Horses (Equus caballus) and Cows (Bos taurus)

Abstract

Bone microstructure of domestic herbivores is still not completely understood. Indeed, works focused on the bone histology of numerous Mammalian species frequently led to misunderstandings because of the high number of variations such as the kind of bone, section orientation, species, breed and age. Moreover, attempts to identify the species in archaeozoological studies by a mere qualitative approach have not been encouraging and in recent years quantitative methods, based on image processing and statistical analysis, have appeared. The present study was undertaken to determine whether morphometrical and morphological differences exist in the compact bone structure of the femur and humerus between horses and cows. Measurements such as area, perimeter, minimum and maximum diameter of osteons and Haversian canals as well as the osteonal density were carried out on cross sections of eight humeri and eight femurs of the two herbivores investigated. In agreement with other authors, the qualitative investigation confirmed that the compact bone of horses and cows can be classified as dense Haversian tissue. Osteons of the horse were more numerous and composed of a higher number of well-defined lamellae when compared with the cow. Diameter, perimeter and area of osteons and Haversian canals were always higher in horses than in cows and this pattern could be related to the different locomotor behaviour of these animals.

A histomorphological analysis of human and non-human femora

“…Haversian bone, with a number of primary vascular canals, and primary and secondary osteons [20,25,39]. Some of the secondary osteons were often linearly arranged in bands similar to observations by Cuijpers [20].…”

“…Also, unlike reports by Martiniaková et al [18,21,22] sheep femora did not comprise of plexiform bone but rather of primary vascular longitudinal bone with a number of primary osteons. This dissimilarity can also be ascribed to the differences associated with various breeds of sheep utilised in the several studies [26,39]. To the knowledge of the authors this is the first study to describe the histological arrangement of impala femora and a number of histomorphological similarities between impala and sheep femora were reported.…”

“…Additionally variations to osteon patterns have been linked to different breeds of animals [39], however discussions on differences found amongst diverse animal breeds are very scarce in the literature. Also, unlike reports by Martiniaková et al [18,21,22] sheep femora did not comprise of plexiform bone but rather of primary vascular longitudinal bone with a number of primary osteons.…”

“…Bone histomorphology differs among species mainly due to differences related to growth and development rates [19,22], forms of locomotion [39], adaptive responses, mechanical influences, total body size [26] and differences related to metabolism [32]. Apart from factors associated with these specie differences, a number of features have also been identified that affects the general histological appearance of bone and include factors such as pathology, nutritional deficiencies, postural and weight changes and even variations in feeding habits [26].…”

Modelling of bone fracture and strength at different length scales: a review

“…From the mechanics point of view, modelling results demonstrated a significant impact of material properties of cement lines on microcrack-osteon interactions [74,99]. Quantitative analyses of cortical bone have also reported that the size and density of osteons vary with age [78,[100][101][102][103][104]. Because cement lines are prime sites for microcrack formation, an increase in the osteon density could lead to a higher microcrack density, which could reduce the crack-initiation toughness [32,34].…”