Sperm Can Confirm that Lookalike Mice Are Different Species

Think back to health class and picture a sperm. It has a rounded head with a long skinny tail at the end, right? As it turns out, the sperm from different species of animals have different shapes—and new research shows that those shapes can be used to figure out who’s who among closely related rodents.

To reach this conclusion, Noé de la Sancha, a mammal expert and researcher at the Field, and Luis Rossi of the Universidad de Buenos Aires, had to examine a lot of sperm. They looked at 58 individual South American rodents, analyzing at least 50 spermatozoa from each animal.

But is it really necessary to study mouse sperm—aren’t there other ways to tell animals apart? Sure, but it’s not always clear-cut when you’re looking at closely related critters. Even DNA differences could be a sign of geographic variation within one species.

But while two rodents’ DNA might be very close and they might look the same, their sperm could have completely different shapes—a dead giveaway that they belong to separate species. “This adds another level of evidence for telling species apart, just like the shape of their teeth or the length of their tails,” says de la Sancha.

For rodent specimens, it’s not exactly common practice to preserve the sperm. “We put the testicles in formalin, and that preserved the sperm,” says de la Sancha. “A lot of people throw the testes away—they’re an underutilized resource.”

Rossi and de la Sancha were then able to take measurements and observe differences in sperm shape and size. They discovered that the sperm varied quite a bit, even in very closely related species. Some had hooked heads, like the top of a soft-serve ice cream cone, while others were rounded and smooth, and their tails were different sizes. The most variation was found in the sperms’ mid-sections, which contain energy-producing mitochondria that power the sperm to swim.

Telling these rodents apart could have important implications for medicine and conservation. “Some of these species of mice are hosts of specific diseases,” says de la Sancha. “The more accurately we can determine which specimens belong to which species, the better we can fight the spread of those diseases.”

Distinguishing between species is also crucial for researchers working to protect them. “We still don’t know how many species are on the planet right now, and we’re in the sixth mass extinction. We’re losing species faster than we can identify new ones,” says de la Sancha. “This study could make us better able to understand bigger patterns of biodiversity. Using sperm to tell rodents apart is adding one more tool to the toolbox.”

This research paper was published in theJournal of Mammalogy.