A new chromatographic method for separation of bovine brain gangliosides has been developed using Q-Sepharose. Gangliosides were separated based not only on their sialic acid numbers but also on the sialic acid molecular species and chain lengths of the skeletal oligosaccharide portions. The following results indicate that this column chromatography has practical advantages in separating mixtures of gangliosides, especially positional isomers and molecular species with N-acetyl- or N-glycolylneuraminic acid. (1) the loading capacity of Q-Sepharose for gangliosides was very high; (2) most major gangliosides such as GM1, GD1a, GD1b, GT1b and GQ1b were isolated in a single step; (3) these major gangliosides were clearly separated from gangliosides containing, N-glycolylneuraminic acid when examined using Hanganutziu-Deicher antibody; (4) polysialogangliosides that have four or more sialic acid residues were isolated efficiently. It was shown by the combination of Q-Sepharose column chromatography with thin-layer chromatography/enzyme immunostaining that adult bovine brains possess C-series polysialogangliosides as minor components which are known as embryonic molecules in avian and mammalian brains.