Morphology of testicular and post-testicular spermatozoa in Microstigmus arlei Richards, 1972 and M. nigrophthalmus Melo, 1992 (Hymenoptera : Apoidea : Pemphredoninae) with phylogenetic consideration

Abstract

The sperm of Microstigmus arlei and Microstigmus nigrophthalmus are twisted in a spiral and consist of two regions: the head, formed by an acrosome and a nucleus, and the flagellum, formed by two asymmetric mitochondrial derivatives, a long centriolar adjunct, an axoneme (9 + 9 + 2) and two accessory bodies. The head shows a characteristic morphology. The acrosome is very long and is basically made up of a paracrystalline structure. In the central head region, the acrosome is inserted into the nucleus, which is observed coiling laterally around the paracrystalline structure. In the subsequent part of the spermatozoon the nucleus appears round in transverse sections, and over some length it is still penetrated by the acrosome until shortly distal to the flagellar insertion. At this point the nucleus forms an inverted cone-shaped projection. These morphological characteristics of acrosome and nucleus of the Microstigmus wasp have not been previously described in Apoidea and are useful for phylogenetic evaluation of this superfamily.