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sperm

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sperm

Fluid containing the male gametes (sperm cells) of animals. Usually, each sperm cell has a head capsule containing a nucleus, a middle portion containing mitochondria (which provide energy), and a long tail (flagellum). See sexual reproduction.

In most animals, sperm cells (sometimes called ‘sperm’ for short) are motile, and are propelled by a long flagellum, but in some (such as crabs and lobsters) they are nonmotile. The term is sometimes used for the motile male gametes (antherozoids) of lower plants. The human sperm cell is 0.0002 in/0.005 mm long and can survive inside the female for 2–9 days. Mammalian sperm cells have receptor cells identical to some of those found in the lining of the nose. These may help in navigating towards the egg.

Sperm cell counts have fallen by 50% worldwide since 1940, according to a Danish study conducted in 1990. This reduction may be due to increases in pollution as a number of pollutants, including some petroleum by-products and polychlorinated biphenyls, mimic the effects of the female hormone estrogen on cells.



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? Mentioned in ? References in classic literature
 
Assuming the blubber to be the skin of the whale; then, when this skin, as in the case of a very large Sperm Whale, will yield the bulk of one hundred barrels of oil; and, when it is considered that, in quantity, or rather weight, that oil, in its expressed state, is only three fourths, and not the entire substance of the coat; some idea may hence be had of the enormousness of that animated mass, a mere part of whose mere integument yields such a lake of liquid as that.
Moby Dick LXVIII-CXXXIV by Melville, Herman View in context
Sacred To the Memory of The late Captain Ezekiel Hardy, Who in the bows of his boat was killed by a Sperm Whale on the coast of Japan, August 3d, This Tablet Is erected to his Memory by His Widow.
Moby Dick I-LXVII by Melville, Herman View in context
At any rate, he once more signed a ship's articles, and on January 1, 1841, sailed from New Bedford harbour in the whaler Acushnet, bound for the Pacific Ocean and the sperm fishery.
Typee by Melville, Herman View in context
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