Is spermatozoa (ie human) technically considered bacteria? I've been told it is and I've been told it isn't. Would it meet the definition? If not what is sperm considered?
1
-
4$\begingroup$ A sperm is not a bacterium - a sperm cell is an eukaryotic cell with a haploid set of chromosomes. $\endgroup$– Chris ♦Nov 13, 2016 at 12:10
Add a comment
|
2 Answers
$\begingroup$
$\endgroup$
The sperm cell is a eukaryotic cell. All bacteria are prokaryotic. (doesn't necessarily mean all prokaryotic cells are bacteria). Whoever told you that it's technically considered a bacteria, must have used it as a figure of speech referring to it's characteristics.. example, the sperm cell has a flagellum, which some bacteria also have.
The sperm cell is neither technically nor literally a bacterium.
$\begingroup$
$\endgroup$
1
Complement: it's not even a real being: it can't reproduce, it's almost not functioning (I'm not even sure than his DNA material is in a transcriptible form. Basically, it's a dedicated half-cell of a multicellular organism, frozen genetic packed content + a flagellum + mitochondria + enough energy to make it beat for a short duration. As such, we might even find it to share common things with the definition of virus :-)
-
$\begingroup$ If you try, you can even find commonalities with a parasite, but it all depends on definitions and perspective. Example, in order for it to "survive" it must break into an ovum and develop into a fetus, while a parasite also can rarely live without a host... It's all about changing an explanation to make it fit something, using the right words, you could even compare a sperm cell with a snake... Both use peristalsis to move. $\endgroup$– user27740Nov 20, 2016 at 21:24