Erasmus, J.A.Bigalke, R.D.2015-11-302015-11-3020151983Erasmus, JA 1983, 'The application of numerical taxonomy in the classification of staphylococci from bovine milk’, Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research, vol. 50, no. 4, pp. 291-293.0330-2465http://hdl.handle.net/2263/50969The articles have been scanned in colour with a HP Scanjet 5590; 600dpi. Adobe Acrobat XI Pro was used to OCR the text and also for the merging and conversion to the final presentation PDF-format.One-hundred-and-two isolates of staphylococci from bovine milk were each subjected to a battery of 19 different tests. With the application of numerical taxonomy these isolates could be classified into 1 genus and 3 different species. Although the majority of the coagulase negative organisms were grouped as 1 species, the biochemical differences within this group indicated that they should belong to at least 2 species. About 50% of these isolates could be designated Staphylococcus epidermidis. Possibly because of the small number of tests, a finer division into different species could not be made. The coagulase-positive organisms could be divided into 2 species, the smaller group of which consisted of 3 isolates only. If used as the only method for identification, the coagulase test produces false positive results at a rate of about 2,5% of cases and false negative results at a rate of about 1,7%.en©ARC - Onderstepoort and Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Pretoria (original). ©University of Pretoria. Dept. of Library Services (digital).Veterinary medicineStaphylococciCattleMilkVeterinary medicine -- South AfricaArticle