Non-random Distribution of Bull Spermatozoa in a Drop of Sperm Suspension

Abstract

SPERMATOZOA are usually thought to swim in random directions in their suspending medium, seminal plasma, sea water, Krebs–Henseleit–Ringer solution, etc., unless, as in the spermatozoa of many plants and, possibly, some animals, chemotaxis occurs naturally or is induced. The hypothesis of random sperm movement has, in fact, been the basis for a quantitative study of the block to polyspermy in sea-urchin eggs, the spermatozoa being treated as gas molecules which obeyed the classical kinetic theory of gases¹.