TABLE OF CONTENTS
Pseudohermaphrodites
Pseudohermaphrodites are individuals whose gonads (testes or ovaries) correspond to their genetic sex, but their external genitalia or secondary sexual characteristics exhibit features of the opposite sex. This condition is called Pseudohermaphroditism.
Types
Pseudohermaphrodites are classified into two types:
- Female Pseudohermaphrodites
- Male Pseudohermaphrodites
1. Female Pseudohermaphrodite
Female pseudohermaphrodites are rarely seen.
Female pseudohermaphrodites type intersexes with female gonads and external genitalia resembling the male may be produced by exposure to androgens during embryonic life.
Etiology
- Lesion of the adrenal gland
- A biochemical lesion of steroidogenesis
Female or true hermaphrodites with fairly normal external and internal female structures may rarely be fertile since ovulation may occur.
2. Male Pseudohermaphrodite
Male pseudohermaphrodites are very commonly seen.
Symptoms
- Testes in the abdominal cavity or beneath the skin in the scrotal region.
- Scrotum seldom develops, due to the anomalous growth of the external genital organs which usually resemble the female.
- Often a greatly enlarged clitoris is present, which with the vulvar configuration, called “fishhook” vulva.
Caprine pseudohermaphrodites, even though they have testes, are females according to the sex ratio, sex chromatin studies and chromosome analyses.
In goats this condition is a simple recessive sex-limited character associated with hornlessness or the polled condition. Horned hermaphrodites are extremely rare. In swine, a similar recessive type of hermaphroditism, some may be non genetic.
Cow and others prefer to consider the terms true hermaphroditism and pseudohermaphroditism as misnomers indicating they should be regarded as degrees of intersexuality.
Almost all male and female pseudohermaphrodites are genetic or chromosomal females (XX) and are positive on nuclear sexing as indicated by the presence of the sex chromatin mass or Barr body in the nucleus.
Freemartin
Freemartin is an infertile female with a modified genital tract born cotwin, or in greater multiples, with a bull with which it has exchanged whole blood.
