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Drosophila bifurca



Drosophila bifurca
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Diptera
Family: Drosophilidae
Subfamily: Drosophilinae
Genus: Drosophila
Species group: repleta group
Species subgroup: hydei subgroup
Species complex: bifurca complex
Species: D. bifurca
Binomial name
Drosophila bifurca


Drosophila bifurca is a species of fruit fly. Males of this species are known to have the longest sperm cells of any organism on Earth, an astonishing 5.8 cm long when uncoiled.[1] The cells are mostly tail, and are delivered to the females in tangled coils. In a male's entire life he can only make a few hundred such cells. The other members of the genus Drosophila also make very few, giant sperm cells, with D. bifurca's being the longest.

References

  1. ^ Pitnick, S., G.S. Spicer, T.A. Markow (1995). How long is a giant sperm? Nature 375:109. PMID 7753164
 
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Drosophila_bifurca". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia.
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