Authors : Sung Wook Yun, Chul Song Park and Gil Jae Cho
Abstract: This study aimed to investigate the morphological characteristics of donkey (Equus asinus) bred in South Korea. To prevent the sale of donkey meat as horse meat, we developed a method to differentiate horse meat from donkey meat in Korea. The results of physical characterization of 79 domestic donkeys revealed that the ear length was 17-28 cm (mean, 23 cm); body height was 90-135 cm (mean, 118.3 cm); body length was 109-150 cm (mean, 131.2 cm) and body color was white, chestnut, gray, black and brown. We obtained 689 bp polymerase chain reaction products from donkey meat and 620 bp products from horse meat (6 horses were used for analysis) in order to differentiate the meat.
Sung Wook Yun, Chul Song Park and Gil Jae Cho, 2018. Morphological Characterization of Donkeys (Equus asinus) and Molecular Identification of its Meat Produced in Korea. Journal of Animal and Veterinary Advances, 17: 35-38.