CORRESPONDENCE CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 90, NO. 3, 10 FEBRUARY 2006 275

 CORRESPONDENCE

CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 90, NO. 3, 10 FEBRUARY 2006 275

Primate polythelia puzzle

The term ‘polythelia’ comes from Greek and

means ‘many nipples’. In 1150 BC, King

Chow Man in China was reported to have

two supernumerary nipples, a condition

then considered as a gift of divine power1.

In the West, polythelia could be traced

back to the Romans; Lynceus described a

woman with four breasts. Also, Julia, the

mother of Alexander Severus and Anne

Boleyn, the wife of Henry VIII of England

had supernumerary nipples1.

Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire and Darwin suggested

that humans descended from animals

with multiple breasts and polythelia

could be regarded as atavistic or reversionary

manifestations, in which remote ancestral

characteristics unexpectedly appear2,3.

Polythelia is medically described as a minor

congenital malformation that consists of

nipples and/or related tissue in addition

to the two nipples normally appearing on

the chest4. They are located along the

embryonic milk line. In humans, the embryonic

milk line extends bilaterally

from a point slightly beyond the axillae

on the arms, down the chest and the abdomen

toward the groin, and ends at the

proximal inner sides of the thighs. When

Figure 1. An adult female Formosan macaque

with four supernumerary nipples located

anterior and posterior to the normal

nipples. (Photo: G. Agoramoorthy).

they are complete with breast tissue and

ducts, they are called ‘polymastia’4.

Polythelia occur in 1–5% of humans;

range varies in countries from 0.22% in

Hungary to 1.63% in USA, and from

2.5% in Israel to 5.6% in Germany5. In

India, polythelia has been reported as a

cutaneous marker of mitral valve prolapse,

a common heart disorder6. They are usually

expressed asymmetrically, and are associated

with increased risk for urogenital

malignancies – the nature of possible causal

relationships between gene defects, polythelia

and urogenital disease is not clearly

known7,8. Interestingly, polythelia has been

anecdotally linked to multiple births in

human but confirmatory data are lacking9.

Polythelia in non-human primates has

been occasionally reported in species

such as chimpanzee, orangutan, chacma

baboon, rhesus macaque, Japanese macaque

and Formosan macaque10. Nonetheless,

the incidence of polythelia among

the Formosan macaque, which is endemic

to the island of Taiwan, was reported to

be 33%, and the twinning rate was 1% –

both are much greater than those reported

for any other Cercopithecids and apes10.

Between January 2001 and October

2005, we examined a total of 244 adult

female Formosan macaques in 18 social

groups that inhabit Mt. Longevity, Taiwan

to document infant twin birth and polythelia.

We recorded 125 adult females (51.2%)

with polythelia and the number of supernumerary

nipples was two (23.8%) followed

by one (17.2%) and three (8.6%) respectively,

with a maximum of four (1.6%,

Figure 1). We observed four cases of twin

births, of which three multiparous mothers

had polythelia (Table 1). Only one infant

survived till weaning out of every twin

birth. In one out of four cases (Troop B

12, Table 1), two offspring had polythelia

(2, 3) like their mother, while the rest did

not follow this trend. However, in one

case (Troop Kc 5, Table 1), the mother had

none but her daughter had two supernumerary

nipples. The percentage of adult females

with polythelia among the 18 social groups

was not evenly distributed and ranged from

10 to 81.8% (Figure 2). So far we have recorded

ten cases of twinning in Formosan

macaques at Mt. Longevity (including

six cases from an earlier study10) and 90%

of females had polythelia. Besides, twinning

rate was significantly higher in females

with polythelia than those without polythelia

(c2 test, P < 0.01).

The ultimate cause for the high occurrence

of polythelia in Formosan macaques

is unknown. However, isolation and inbreeding,

including developmental by-products

reinforcing selection simultaneously may

have caused this genetic trait to spread in

the population of monkeys. The twinning

rate correlated with the occurrence of polythelia

in Cercopithecids and apes should

be further investigated to understand the

genetic and developmental bases of polythelia

and its relationship with twinning.

This may shed light on questions of

Figure 2. Number and proportion of adult females with supernumerary nipples in 18 social

groups of Formosan macaques at Mt. Longevity, Taiwan.

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276 CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 90, NO. 3, 10 FEBRUARY 2006

Table 1. Twin births and adult females/their offspring with polythelia among wild Formosan macaques at Mt. Longevity, Taiwan between 2001

and 2005

Troop Other births Offspring with

name ID no. N Date of birth Sex Outcome (year/sex)* supernumerary nipples

B 12 3 16 April 2003 M, F M died < 3 days 2000 F, 2002 M, 2004 F Yes (2, 3)

F 10 2 1 August 2005 F, F 1 died < 4 days 2000 F, 2002 M died <

6 months, 2003 F, 2004 M No

I 12 2 13 April 2002 M, M 1 died < 2 week 2000 F, 2001 F, 2003 M, 2004 M No

Kc 5 0 12 June and M, M 1 died < 6 weeks 2000 M, 2002 F, 2003 M, 2004 F Yes (2)

26 June 2001

N, Number of supernumerary nipples.

*Birth records of 2000 were pooled from unpublished data.

fundamental interest, such as fluctuating

asymmetry and primate trend to single

births.

It is not easy though to observe polythelia

in the often arboreal and furry, nonhuman

primates under field conditions

due to visibility problems. Field biologists

have to approach their subjects in close

quarters to carefully observe the presence

of polythelia. Countries like India where

monkeys such as the bonnet macaque,

rhesus macaque and Hanuman langur coexist

with people in rural and urban areas,

may provide better opportunity for such

closer scrutiny. This ultimately may result

in understanding the population genetics

and fitness consequences of both phenomena,

as well as the intriguing relationship

amongst multiple births, polythelia and

the potential correlation of urogenital

anomaly.

1. Gould, G. M. and Pyle, W. L., Anomalies

and Curiosities of Medicine, Julian Press,

New York, 1962.

2. Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire, I., Historie generale

et particuliere des anomalies de

l’himme et les animaux, vol. 1, J.B.

Bailliere, Paris, 1832.

3. Darwin, C., The Descent of Man, John,

Murray, London, 1871.

4. Schmidt, H., Eur. J. Pediatr., 1998, 157,

821–823.

5. Rahbar, F., Clin. Pediatr., 1982, 21, 46–47.

6. Rajaratnam, K., Kumar, P. D. and Sahasranam,

K. V., Am. J. Cardiol., 2000, 86,

695–697.

7. Casey, H. D., Chasan, P. E. and Chick,

L. R., Ann. Plastic Surg., 1996, 36, 101–

104.

8. Urbani, C. E. and Betti, R., Int. J. Dermatol.,

1996, 35, 349–352.

9. Grossl, N. A., South Med. J., 2000, 93,

29–32.

10. Hsu, M. J., Moore, J., Lin, J. F. and Agoramoorthy,

G., Am. J. Primatol., 2000, 52,

199–205.

MINNA J. HSU1

JIN-FU LIN2

TAI-JUNG LIN3

GOVINDASAMY AGORAMOORTHY3,*

1Department of Biological Sciences,

National Sun Yat-sen University,

Kaohsiung 804, Taiwan

2Shi-Pu Junior High School,

Kaohsiung 840, Taiwan

3Department of Pharmacy,

Tajen University,

Yanpu, Pingtung 907, Taiwan

*e-mail: agoram@mail.nsysu.edu.tw

Plight of higher education and our helplessness to act

One would like to agree and appreciate the

commentary by Lakhotia1 about the plight

of universities in our country in highlighting

the prevailing conditions in teaching and

research, faculty, facilities, funds, admissions,

appointments, administration and also

suggestions for possible improvements.

A lot has been said in the past about publications

and journals too. All this is too

well known, particularly to those scientists

who matter for shaping the policy of higher

education and research. Sometime back,

one of the top scientists of the country

publicly expressed his anguish over the

prevailing poor scientific status of universities

in the country, and implying thereby

his helplessness to do anything about it.

The basic question is: if the physician

has diagnosed the illness rightly, why does

he not administer the medicine? Unless

such things are highlighted, how are they

going to be improved?

Lakhotia1 has rightly suggested restrictions

for Master’s and Ph D degrees. If

one wants to improve the situation, this

is perhaps the first thing to be done. The

big question is: Can we close down so

many PG colleges which have sprung up

in remote corners of the country? Will our

political system permit this? Another farreaching

suggestions is contractual appointments

of teachers. Would we permit

an altogether different service condition

in isolation from elite services? UGC

made this recommendation about three years

ago, but so far no university has adopted

the scheme.

Lakhotia has not dealt with the factors

affecting the standard of education in the

universities. It is the government policy

of liberalization of education which has

literally reduced education to a commodity

so that thousands of private professional

and basic sciences colleges have been started

throughout the country. How can one expect

any standard and excellence from such

institutions?

Given the existing circumstances, what

little can a common scientist do? Thirty

years ago when I was appointed as head

of the Department of Chemistry of the