Tiny creature, giant sperm
By Susan Milius
Crustaceans called ostracods face an unusual challenge: Their sperm can be up to 10 times as long as their bodies.
Admittedly, an ostracod’s body fits on the head of a pin, and the longest sperm filaments stretch only about a centimeter. Still, the mismatch intrigues biologists of a species that would have to produce sperm more than 15 meters long to reproduce in ostracod style. Now, two scientists have tackled the question of how ostracods’ internal plumbing handles such extreme sperm.