So there's branchiopods, ostracods, copepods, cladocerans...and besides the crustaceans, there's a lot more.

有叶足动物、介形亚纲动物、桡足类动物、水蚤类动物....除了甲壳类动物外，还有很多。这是真的，还有很多。

A typical ostracod specimen is about a millimeter long.

典型的介形类标本长约一毫米。

The overachiever in question is a crustacean called an ostracod, which is a type of tiny freshwater shrimp.

有问题的优胜者是一种叫做介形类的甲壳类动物，它是一种微小的淡水虾。

Marie Simovich: So there's branchiopods, ostracods, copepods, cladocerans... And besides the crustaceans, there's a lot more.

Marie Simovich：所以有鳃足类、介形类、桡足类、枝角类… … 除了甲壳类动物，还有更多。

Scientists have known about this reproductive oddity in ostracods for more than a hundred years.

一百多年来，科学家们已经知道介形类动物的这种生殖怪异现象。

Part of what they found was that the structure of the sex cells was virtually identical to those in ostracods living today.

他们发现的部分原因是性细胞的结构与现代介形类动物的性细胞结构几乎相同。

Now, producing such massive sperm takes a lot of energy -- up to a third of a male ostracod’s body is dedicated to making and distributing these cells.

现在，产生如此巨大的精子需要大量能量——雄性介形类动物身体的三分之一专门用于制造和分配这些细胞。

They conclude that, if this unusual reproductive set-up has persisted for tens of millions of years, then there must be something about it that works very well for the ostracods.

他们的结论是，如果这种不寻常的繁殖设置持续了数千万年， 那么它一定有某些对介形类动物非常有效的东西。

On Wednesday, researchers in Germany said that they’d found dozens of 16-million-year-old fossil ostracods in an Australian cave, and they were so well-preserved that the scientists were able to see how the sperm was configured.

周三，德国研究人员表示， 他们在澳大利亚的一个洞穴中发现了数十具 1600 万年前的介形类化石，它们保存完好， 科学家们能够看到精子的构造。