Early stages of embryonic development in two rabbit genotypes.

The origin of the early embryonic loss that occurs during the first 4 days after mating in Californian doe-rabbits has been studied at 24 h or 60 h post coitum (p.c.). For comparison, 11 New Zealand doe-rabbits were slaughtered at the same times. The development stage of the embryo was determined after examination in toto at 24 h or by counting the morula nuclei at 60 h on histological sections. At 24 h p.c., 5.3% of the New Zealand eggs had not divided vs 37% of the Californian ones; this difference was highly significant. At 60 h p.c. frequency histograms of the number of morula nuclei showed that development was more variable in Californian does than in the New Zealand ones. However, the mean number of morula nuclei of each genotype was not significantly different. The higher proportion of Californian eggs (compared to New Zealand eggs) that were unfertilized or showed retarded segmentation is the main cause of the unexpectedly lower prolificacy of Californian rabbits.