Giant-sperm fruit fly (sperm, not a penis)
Drosophila bifurca
5.8 cm
Sperm length (uncoiled), whole spermatozoon; mean of 3–5 males (sperm cell, not a penis)
Record holder
Uncoiled, a single sperm of this fruit fly averages 58.29 mm. Males need 17 days after emerging to produce fertile sperm; females are ready at 7.
Margin note: Off topic, admittedly.
Sources
- Pitnick S., Markow T.A., Spicer G.S. (1995) Delayed male maturity is a cost of producing large sperm in Drosophila. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 92:10614–10618 doi:10.1073/pnas.92.23.10614
- Bjork A., Pitnick S. (2006) Intensity of sexual selection along the anisogamy–isogamy continuum. Nature 441:742–745 doi:10.1038/nature04683
Drawn from
- Bjork & Pitnick 2006, Nature 441, Fig. 1a: SEM of one whole D. bifurca spermatozoon (~6 cm) as a loose tangle of a single uniform filament (scale bar 20 µm)
- Bjork & Pitnick 2006, Nature 441, Fig. 1b: A single sperm rolled into a compact ball (shown six times) beside the much larger egg, same magnification (scale bar 50 µm)
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