{"id":10961,"date":"2020-09-18T12:46:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-18T19:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/BigJimIndustries.com\/wordpress\/?p=10961"},"modified":"2020-09-27T12:56:10","modified_gmt":"2020-09-27T19:56:10","slug":"ripe-giant-sperm-found-in-female-ostracod","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2020\/09\/18\/ripe-giant-sperm-found-in-female-ostracod\/","title":{"rendered":"Ripe giant sperm found in female ostracod"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.standard.co.uk\/news\/world\/giant-sperm-100-million-year-old-fossilised-oldest-a4548876.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">from The Evening Standard<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">100-million-year-old giant sperm found fossilised in amber could be oldest ever<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p>by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.standard.co.uk\/author\/harriet-brewis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">HARRIET BREWIS<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.standard.co.uk\/s3fs-public\/thumbnails\/image\/2020\/09\/16\/14\/GiantSperm1609a.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><figcaption><em>The sperm was found in a mussel-like creature which got trapped in resin some 100 million years ago\u00a0( PA )<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>An international team of palaeontologists unearthed the \u201cspectacular find\u201d, which was preserved inside a female crustacean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They believe the mussel-like creature mated shortly before becoming trapped in the resin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Their findings, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, provide &#8220;an extremely rare opportunity&#8221; to learn more about the evolution of the reproductive process, they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Until now the oldest known fossilised sperm was found inside a 50-million-year-old worm cocoon from\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.standard.co.uk\/topic\/antarctica\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Antarctica<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The crustacean, a new species of ostracod called Myanmarcypris hui, is thought to have lived in coastal and inland waters of what is now\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.standard.co.uk\/topic\/myanmar\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Myanmar<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It would have been surrounded by trees that released huge amounts of resin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While a majority of male animal species, including humans, produce large quantities of very small sperm to increase chances of fertilisation, there are exceptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some creatures, such as fruit flies and modern-day ostracods, produce a small number of oversized sperm, with tails several times longer than the animal itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In these cases, the researchers say, chances of fertilising an ovum can increase with the size of the sperm cell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[ <a href=\"https:\/\/www.standard.co.uk\/news\/world\/giant-sperm-100-million-year-old-fossilised-oldest-a4548876.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">click to continue reading at Evening Standard<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>from The Evening Standard 100-million-year-old giant sperm found fossilised in amber could be oldest ever by HARRIET BREWIS An international team of palaeontologists unearthed the \u201cspectacular find\u201d, which was preserved inside a female crustacean. They believe the mussel-like creature mated shortly before becoming trapped in the resin. Their findings, published in Proceedings of the Royal [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10961\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}