Fluorescence in situ hybridization has been used to demonstrate the differential distribution of interspersed repetitive elements in the genome of Mus musculus domesticus. Hybridization with a mouse long interspersed element sequence results in a sharp, highly reproducible banding pattern on metaphase chromosomes, which is quite similar to Giemsa banding for all chromosomes except 7 and X. The families of short interspersed elements, B1 and B2, preferentially cluster in the R, or reverse, bands. There is no evidence of any interspersed repeat present in the centromeric heterochromatic regions. Both the long interspersed element and B2 probes give banding patterns suitable for karyotype analysis. Simultaneous hybridization of the biotinylated long interspersed element probe and a digoxigenin-labeled cosmid to metaphase spreads allows rapid localization of a probe of interest to a particular cytogenetic band on a chromosome.