Some animal species produce – at great energetic cost – sperm cells that are longer than the male organism itself. It is not known how old, in evolutionary terms, this phenomenon is. Using a newly developed high-tech approach, it has become possible to investigate the internal organs of exceptionally well preserved fossils. In cooperation with an international team of scientists, the palaeontologist Dr. Renate Matzke-Karasz recently succeeded in demonstrating that tiny ostracods (mussel shrimps) already used giant sperm for reproduction some 100 million years ago.

Ver todos los episodios