THE ULTRASTRUCTURE OF SPERMATOZOA OF AFRICAN BUFFALO (SYNCERUS-CAFFER) IN THE KRUGER-NATIONAL-PARK

African buffalo spermatozoa were studied by means of electron microsco py, which revealed structural features typical of mammalian spermatozo a. The head is paddle-shaped, dorsoventrally flattened, and displays a n acrosome which has a unilateral apical thickening. The tail is typic ally divided into a midpiece, principal-piece and end-piece which disp lay characteristic mammalian features. The neck region contains coaxia lly oriented mitochondria, occasionally interspersed with circumferent ially oriented mitochondria. Long stalk-like appendages are found on s ome cytoplasmic droplets. Long, thin filaments, projecting from the di stal mitochondrial sheath and parts of the principal-piece, are also o bserved. The annulus differs from those previously described for mamma lian spermatozoa. It has a flat cone shape and the fibrous sheath of t he principal-piece extends between the distal portion of the annulus a nd the axoneme to form a close contact with the base of the annular ri ng. A retro-annular recess is absent. The results of scanning and tran smission electron microscopy counts showed that 87.4% and 81.6%, respe ctively, of the sperm appeared normal in terms of the evaluated abnorm alities.