<p>A team of palaeontologists have discovered what they believe is the world's oldest animal sperm, frozen inside a tiny crustacean in a blob of tree resin in Myanmar 100 million years ago.</p>.<p>The oldest known examples of fossilised animal sperm were previously a mere 17 million years old, according to the team of experts led by Wang He of the Chinese Academy of Science in Nanjing.</p>.<p>The sperms were found inside an ostracod, a kind of crustacean that has existed for 500 million years and can be found in many oceans today, they said in a paper published Wednesday in the prestigious Royal Society's Proceedings journal.</p>.<p>They were found in the body of a female specimen, indicating that she must have been fertilised shortly before being trapped in amber, the experts said.</p>.<p>To make the find even more special, the sperms were also described as "giants", measuring up to 4.6 times the size of the body of the male.</p>.<p>"This is equivalent to about 7.30 metres in a 1.70-metre human, so it requires a lot of energy to produce them," Renate Matzke-Karasz of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, co-author of the study, told AFP.</p>.<p>The ostracod was also a new species that the scientists have named "Myanmarcypris hui".</p>.<p>Fossilised shells of ostracods are common but finding a specimen with "soft parts" is rare, the experts said.</p>.<p>During the Cretaceous period (around 145 to 66 million years ago), the ostracods in question probably lived in the coastal waters of present-day Myanmar where they became trapped in a blob of tree resin.</p>.<p>Most males in the animal world (including humans) generally produce tens of millions of tiny sperm cells, but for ostracods, it's all about quality over quantity.</p>.<p>There are several conflicting theories about the evolutionary value of such giant sperms.</p>.<p>"For example, experiments have shown that in one group, a high degree of competition between males can lead to a longer sperm life, while in another group, a low degree of competition also led to a longer sperm life," said Matzke-Karasz.</p>.<p>This discovery shows "that reproduction with giant sperm is not an evolutionary extravagance on the brink of extinction, but a serious long-term advantage for the survival of a species," Matzke-Karasz concluded.</p>
<p>A team of palaeontologists have discovered what they believe is the world's oldest animal sperm, frozen inside a tiny crustacean in a blob of tree resin in Myanmar 100 million years ago.</p>.<p>The oldest known examples of fossilised animal sperm were previously a mere 17 million years old, according to the team of experts led by Wang He of the Chinese Academy of Science in Nanjing.</p>.<p>The sperms were found inside an ostracod, a kind of crustacean that has existed for 500 million years and can be found in many oceans today, they said in a paper published Wednesday in the prestigious Royal Society's Proceedings journal.</p>.<p>They were found in the body of a female specimen, indicating that she must have been fertilised shortly before being trapped in amber, the experts said.</p>.<p>To make the find even more special, the sperms were also described as "giants", measuring up to 4.6 times the size of the body of the male.</p>.<p>"This is equivalent to about 7.30 metres in a 1.70-metre human, so it requires a lot of energy to produce them," Renate Matzke-Karasz of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, co-author of the study, told AFP.</p>.<p>The ostracod was also a new species that the scientists have named "Myanmarcypris hui".</p>.<p>Fossilised shells of ostracods are common but finding a specimen with "soft parts" is rare, the experts said.</p>.<p>During the Cretaceous period (around 145 to 66 million years ago), the ostracods in question probably lived in the coastal waters of present-day Myanmar where they became trapped in a blob of tree resin.</p>.<p>Most males in the animal world (including humans) generally produce tens of millions of tiny sperm cells, but for ostracods, it's all about quality over quantity.</p>.<p>There are several conflicting theories about the evolutionary value of such giant sperms.</p>.<p>"For example, experiments have shown that in one group, a high degree of competition between males can lead to a longer sperm life, while in another group, a low degree of competition also led to a longer sperm life," said Matzke-Karasz.</p>.<p>This discovery shows "that reproduction with giant sperm is not an evolutionary extravagance on the brink of extinction, but a serious long-term advantage for the survival of a species," Matzke-Karasz concluded.</p>