Morphometric differences between Australian wild rabbit populations

Abstract

Morphometric distances, based on 20 skull measurements, were determined between eight localized Australian wild rabbit populations and a sample from the British Isles. To minimize the influence of age-associated variation in the Australian series, only animals estimated to be at least 12 months old (based on epiphyseal and dry eye-lens aging techniques) were included. Sexes were pooled after univariate and multivariate testing for sexual dimorphism and eliminating bizygomatic breadth. By means of univariate statistics, Mahalanobis generalized distance and canonical analysis, the various Australian and British Isles samples were shown to differ appreciably, morphometric distance increasing cl..