'Killer sperm' prevents mating between worm species
Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - 03:01
in Biology & Nature
Most cross-species mating is merely unsuccessful in producing offspring. However, when researchers mated Caenorhabditis worms of different species, they found that the lifespan of the female worms and their number of progeny were drastically reduced compared with females that mated with the same species. In addition, females that survived cross-species mating were often sterile, even if they subsequently mated with their own species.
