Bottom of the swimming league: Naked mole rat sperm

Monday, December 5, 2011 - 02:40 in Biology & Nature

Naked mole rats (Heterocephalus glaber) live in a 'hive' society with one reproducing queen and between one and three reproducing males. The rest of the mole rats in the colony are workers either defending the burrow or finding food – not an easy task when you are virtually blind and all the tunnels smell of mole rat. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology shows that mole rat sperm has become simple and degenerate, probably due to 'orthogenic' (straight line) evolution.

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