| Abstract: | The spermatozoa of seven fishes belonging to Cyprinid family are examined. They have no acrosome, like all Teleost fishes, a spheroidal or slightly elliptic nucleus, always eccentrically placed on the tail, two variously oriented centrioles, and a postnuclear cytoplasmic region of various size that contains some mitochondria (2 to 10) and surrounds a periaxonemal postnuclear canal. The tail is of moderate length (from 36 to 60 μm) and contains a “9 + 2” axoneme: both dynein arms are present. Comparative examination of the spermatozoa in the seven species shows that significant differences occur among them, even when they belong to the same genus. These concern the tail length; the position of the centrioles, the proximal with respect to the central one and with respect to the nucleus; the number of mitochondria, which is in relationship to the depth of the postnuclear canal. In the uniform general pattern of the ultrastructure of the Cyprinid spermatozoa, each species is characterized by a particular organization of the sperm organelles; in this respect, the two species examined by us, Leuciscus cephalus and souffia, are more closely related, even if easily recognizable one from the other. From a phylogenetic point of view, the comparative spermatology of the Cyprinid fishes suggests that the mitochondrial number is a good character, which enables us to order them in a phylogenetic arrangement. |
