Fertilizing capacity of vitrified epididymal sperm from Iberian ibex (Capra pyrenaica)

In this study, we successfully described for the first time a vitrification of epididymal Iberian ibex spermatozoa. Spermatozoa from epididymis were obtained from 15 Iberian ibex. The right epididymis' semen sample was vitrified and the left one was frozen. After thawing/warming, samples were selected by density gradient. Sperm characteristics from each treatment were evaluated. To test the spermatozoa fertilization ability, heterologous IVF was carried out using bovine oocytes. Despite of the observation of a decrease of about 40% for motility sperm between pre-freezing and post-thawing (75.0 ± 5.2 and 45.0 ± 6.0) and pre-vitrification and post-warming (78.2 ± 5.2 and 33.9 ± 6.2) (P