The ultrastructure of dog epididymis

The ultrastructure of the epididymal duct and ductuli efferentes in the dog has been studied by electron microscopy. The epididymidis can be separated into the classical divisions of caput, corpus and cauda epididymidis on the basis of general morphology and ultrastructure. The ductuli efferentes have a low epithelium with pronounced cilia at the apices of cells and appear to provide primarily a transport role for spermatozoa. In the epididymis proper the caput region is characterized by an extremely large Golgi apparatus with large numbers of lysosomes and nuclear inclusions. Secretory activity appears to be most common in the corpus region. Absorption and secretion are most active in the first two segments while in the cauda epididymidis the long-term storage of spermatozoa in the lumen is associated with many dense crystalline bodies formed in the epithelial cells within the Golgi apparatus and possibly deriving from absorbed macromolecular material from the lumen. The theory of whole sperm cell resorption by the epididymal duct is not supported by this study.