Abstract: The fat characterisics of tail fat tissue in fat-tailed sheep from Xinjiang were analyzed by solid-phase microextraction (SPME) coulped to gas chromatography (GC)-mass spectrmetry (MS). The iodine, acid, and saponification values were 59.6, 0.095 KOH mg/g, 190.9 KOH mg/g, respectively. The fatty acid composition consisted mainly ofmyristic acid, palmitic acid, stearic acid, oleic acid, linoleic acid and linolenic acid, which accounted for 8.9%, 23.6%, 13.5%, 34.9%, 2.4% and 1.3%, respectively. The amino acid content of the fat tissue was 0.02%. A total of 26 predominant volatile components were detected such as cyclobutanol, cyclohexane, ethyl acetate, and so on.

Key words: fat-tailed sheep, fat characteristics, solid-phase microextraction-gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy (SPEM-GC-MS)