Science
World’s oldest sperm found preserved in amber in Myanmar – BBC Discover Wildlife
The astonishing new discovery, found fossilised in amber in Myanmar, has been hailed as a ‘spectacular find’ by scientists.
100 million years ago during the Cretaceous period, in what is now Myanmar, ostracods living in a coastal lagoon, fringed by trees, had just had a sexual encounter when they became trapped inside the resin of a tree.
Cocooned for millennia, encased in a coffin of amber, the microscopic crustaceans remained preserved in a time-capsule.
Artists reconstruction of the Cretaceous ostracod crustacean Myanmarcypris hui male (right) and female (left) during mating. © Dinghua Yang
But small though th…
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