Abstract
Lipids were extracted from representative tissues such as blood, brain, heart, kidney, liver, lung and spleen removed from 9 mammalian species of either sex in addition to the calf and embryonic pig; rat organs were pooled according to sex. The samples were saponified and the total fatty acids analyzed by GC under comparable conditions. By application of the Friedman statistic, a nonparametric procedure, organ‐specific fatty acid profiles could not be discerned except possibly for canine heart and lung. Species variations in the acids of the organs screened were observed only for the embryonal pig and raccoon liver lipids. The biochemical or metabolic significance of these few exceptions is yet to be elucidated. The fatty acid differences according to sex were not remarkable in the rat. In studies of the association between fatty acid profiles and pairs of distinct organs as deduced by the Spearman rank correlation coefficients, kidney ‐ spleen and heart ‐ lung showed the highest correlation. Possibly, a significant degree of association of fatty acids among such organs as kidney, spleen, heart and liver can be inferred from the coefficients.