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Does apoptosis hold the key to long‐term sperm storage mechanisms in vivo?

This issue of the journal is publishing a relatively short and unassuming, but “landmark”, paper by Roy and Krishna, showing that sperm storage in the female reproductive tract of the Greater Asiatic Yellow House Bat, Scotophilus heathii, is mediated via the action of androgens. This manuscript is the latest in a long-running search by these and other researchers to fi nd an explanation for the unusually effective mechanism of sperm storage in the female reproductive tract. Like a number of other bat species (Racey 1975; Racey 1979), these animals mate in the autumn but delay fertilisation for about fi ve months until the following spring (Gopalakrishna and Madhavan 1978). The spermatozoa clearly remain viable and fertile within the female reproductive tract, and detailed histological and ultrastructural studies have shown that the spermatozoa become intimately associated with the surface of the uterine and oviductal epithelium (Racey et al. 1973; Racey et al. 1987) (Figs. 1 and 2).