One of the most extraordinary thing happened, when a scientist discovered an ancient giant sperm in Australia.
According to Business Standard’s post of May 14, 2014, a giant sperm has been found which is longer than a crustacean’s male body and is supposedly 17-million-years-old.
This particular found is a great opportunity for the scientists to dig deep into the kind of species that existed then and know ,ore about them.
It was found tightly coiled up inside the sexual organs of the fossilized freshwater crustaceans known as ostracods which actually belongs to a tiny shrimp.
After extensive research it has been declared that the sperm is 1.3 millimeters long, almost the same length as the creature itself or even longer.
Professor Mike Archer from University of New South Wales’s school of biological earth and environmental sciences said, “These are the oldest fossilised sperm ever found in the geological record.”
Further more he added that, “But the discovery of fossil sperm, complete with sperm nuclei, was totally unexpected. It now makes us wonder what other types of extraordinary preservation await discovery in these deposits.”
After a proper microscopic study it was revealed that the internal organs of the ostracods were preserved including the sexual and Zenker organs.
To the scientist’s surprise there were giant sperm cells, and within them, the nuclei that once contained the animals’ chromosomes and DNA.
This one research can help these scientists derive various useful details about the species. Such discoveries will definitely help us to know about the lives before us.