Electron Microscopic Study on Sperm Tail Differentiation of the Jordanian Lizard Agama stellio PDF

Keywords

Agama stellio, sperm tail, Jordanian Lizard

Abstract

The sperm tail of A. stellio consists of a middle piece, a principal piece, and an end piece. The tail is connected to the nucleus with an extremely short neck, composed of a capitulum and a connecting piece with striated elements; no neck cylinder is present. The middle piece comprises mitochondrial sheath, fibrous sheath, nine dense fibers, and an axoneme of nine doublets and two singlets. Dense intermitochondrial plaques are present between the mitochondria, which are arranged end-to-end, in a longitudinal fashion. The fibrous sheath consists of fibrous rings which extend from the posterior two thirds of the middle piece till the end of the principal piece. The latter is made of an axonemal core within the fibrous sheath. The end piece is just a plain axoneme. The sperm plasma membrane surrounds all parts of the tail.