The ultrastructure and activity of sperm inAcanthodoris pilosa, a nudibranchiate mollusk

✍ Scribed by J. A. Holman

• Book ID: 104734878
• Publisher: Springer-Verlag
• Year: 1972
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 556 KB
• Volume: 12
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0025-3162
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00350753

✦ Synopsis

The sperm of Acanthodoris pitosa were examined in fresh preparations, histoehemieMly stained samples, electronmicroscope sections, and in paraffin sections of the whole reproductive mass. Sperm are morphologically the same in the ampulla. (vas deferens) and the spermatotheea and spermatocyst (bursae for sperm received during copulation). The elec4ron micrographs show sperm with a long spiralled, fibrous, nuclear head with non-fibrous tongue-like aerosome. The tail, attached directly to the posterior of the head, has a 9 + 2 filamentous arrangement surrounded by a spiralled sheath which contains mitoehondria and granular thread running the length of the tail. The thin-wMled ampulla contains non-motile sperm and no energy sources such as polysaccharides and lipids. The bursae hold motile sperm and, with histochemicM stains, were shown to contain polysaecharide droplets in walls and lumen. The lack of selffertilization in nudibranchs appears to be associated with a physiological immaturity of the sperm in the hermaphroditic duct, where egg and sperm meet as they leave the ovotestis.