  Infrared thermography (IRT) is a valuable diagnostic tool in equine
veterinary medicine however, little is known about its application in donkeys.
The aim was to find patterns in thermal images of donkeys and horses, and
determine if these patterns share similarities. The study was carried out on 18
donkeys and 16 horses. All equids underwent thermal imaging with an infrared
camera and measuring the skin thickness and hair coat length. On the class maps
of each thermal image, 15 regions of interest (ROIs) were annotated and then
combined into 10 groups of ROIs (GORs). The existence of statistically
significant differences between surface temperatures in GORs was tested both
`globally' for all animals of a given species and `locally' for each animal.
Two special cases of animals that differ from the rest were also discussed. Our
results indicated that the majority of thermal patterns are similar for both
species however, average surface temperatures in horses are higher than in
donkeys. It may be related to differences in the skin and hair coat. We
concluded, the patterns of both species are associated with GORs, rather than
an individual ROI, with higher uniformity of donkeys patterns.
