[Does there exist a correlation between the number of whorls of the finger tips and birth order of sibs? (author's transl)].

It was stated by Birdsong and Rashad (1972) that the child of birth order number six of Korean families has significantly more true whorls on the finger tips than older brothers and sisters. To verify this assertion we studied a sample of all members of 43 normal German families with 5 or more legitimate children. The findings of the epidermal finger pattern types and those of the toe patterns were analysed. Results indicate a different conclusion regarding the number of digital whorls which were not increased statistically with increasing number of sibs. The number of whorls were randomly distributed within the heritable range of variability of the particular family. It appears of importance that, due to our analyses, the value of information of the characteristic "number of whorls" is not reduced and does not require a specific consideration regarding birth order. Furthermore, it can be stated preliminarly that there is no hint pointing to an influence of the maternal age on the number of whorls in their offspring.