- Reaction score
- 1,697
The world’s oldest animal sperm has been found in a tiny crustacean trapped in Amber about 100 million years ago in Myanmar by the international partnership of researchers from London’s Queen Mary University and the Chinese Academy of Science in Nanjing.
Dr. He Wang of the Chinese Academy of Science in Nanjing led the study team to locate sperm in a new species called Myanmarcypris hui. They predict that the animals had sex just before their entrapment in the piece of amber (tree resin), which formed in the Cretaceous period.
Sperm fossilized was exceptionally rare; previously the oldest known examples were only 17 million years old. Myanmarcypris hui is an ostracod, a kind of crustacean that has existed for 500 million years and lives in all kinds of aquatic environments from deep oceans to lakes and rivers.
Their fossil shells are common and abundant but finding specimens preserved in ancient amber with their appendages and internal organs intact provides a rare and exciting opportunity to learn more about their evolution.
archaeology-world.com
Dr. He Wang of the Chinese Academy of Science in Nanjing led the study team to locate sperm in a new species called Myanmarcypris hui. They predict that the animals had sex just before their entrapment in the piece of amber (tree resin), which formed in the Cretaceous period.
Sperm fossilized was exceptionally rare; previously the oldest known examples were only 17 million years old. Myanmarcypris hui is an ostracod, a kind of crustacean that has existed for 500 million years and lives in all kinds of aquatic environments from deep oceans to lakes and rivers.
Their fossil shells are common and abundant but finding specimens preserved in ancient amber with their appendages and internal organs intact provides a rare and exciting opportunity to learn more about their evolution.
100-million-year old giant sperm found trapped in amber | ARCHAEOLOGY WORLD
archaeology-world.com
