MORPHOLOGICAL VARIATION AMONG THE REDDIS OF SOUTHERN ANDHRA PRADESH, INDIA

A total of 1000 males belonging to five Reddi, populations were studied for six morphological and two behavioural traits. The ranges of variation in the frequency distribution of the six morphological characters were found to be large and the differences between pairs of populations are significant as indicated by X2 values. The two behavioural traits however do not show much variation. A traitwise comparison of the present study with that available on other caste populations of Andhra Pradesh shows heterogeneity between them. B2 values were obtained using Balakrishnan and Sanghvi’s method. The cluster analysis shows two major clusters formed by the five populations. Close relationship is observed between the clusters for morphological traits and the cluster for anthropometric traits. Using the first three principal coordinates, a three-dimensional representation was given to morphological distance.