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Scientists Find World's Oldest Sperm in Myanmar Amber

posted by martyb on Wednesday September 16 2020, @09:49PM   Printer-friendly

Phoenix666 writes:

Al Jazeera:

A team of paleontologists has discovered what they believe is the world's oldest animal sperm, frozen inside a tiny crustacean in a blob of tree resin in Myanmar 100 million years ago.

The oldest known examples of fossilised animal sperm were previously a mere 17 million years old, according to the team of experts led by Wang He of the Chinese Academy of Science in Nanjing.

The sperm were found inside an ostracod, a kind of crustacean that has existed for 500 million years and can be found in many oceans today, researchers said in a paper published on Wednesday in the prestigious Royal Society's Proceedings journal.

The specimen was found inside the body of a fertilized female.

Journal Reference:
He Wang, Renate Matzke-Karasz, David J. Horne, et al. Exceptional preservation of reproductive organs and giant sperm in Cretaceous ostracods, Proceedings of the Royal Society B (DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2020.1661)

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  • (Score: 1) by isocelated on Thursday September 17 2020, @11:26AM (1 child)

    by isocelated (7338) on Thursday September 17 2020, @11:26AM (#1052132)

    I came here solely for the comments.

  • (Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Friday September 18 2020, @01:32AM

    by linkdude64 (5482) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 18 2020, @01:32AM (#1052526)

    A stroke of genius, on your part.