Super Sperm

I love the scene in “Look Who’s Talking” where the basic rule of human reproduction plays out on screen: the fastest sperm wins the race to the egg. But in the animal kingdom at large, that is not always the case. Scientists have found an ancient species called Ostracods where the largest sperm won. Even though Ostracods were kinda snail like and less than centimeter long, the males produced sperm nearly ten times their size. I can only imagine that super sperm would make reproduction mega painful, but fear not! Evolution endowed the female sea critters with huge cavities (pictured above is an X-ray image of one cavity half filled with the massive man juices) nearly a third of their body size, to store the mammoth sperm. Well now you know: when it comes to the big O (O, meaning “Ostracod”), bigger is better. [IO9]