Is the fastest sperm to reach and fertilise the egg necessarily the fittest or healthiest? If not, what usually determines its success?
In: Biology
Actually, the first sperm cells to reach the egg don’t fertilize it. Usually it’s one of the last sperm cells that do. The membrane of the egg cell is quite strong and the first wave of sperm cells weaken it so the last ones have a chance to penetrate it.
Mostly luck. It’s not necessary fittest or healthiest of all, because most sperm cells aren’t lucky by definition of luck. A group of sperm cells will move together and many of them should die out just to make path to their target easier for other cells.
But to fertilize the egg, they should be healthy enough and to complete some “checks”. That is like a basic check that their DNA is not damaged badly, under the point when cells become unable to do it’s job, but not enough to ensure that DNA don’t have any mutation – they almost certainly will have some minor mutations.
Luck, a hehehehehell lot of luck. The first ones to reach the egg usually die penetrating it.
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