Hi Eric. I have to confess that I had to Google this! Apparently the smallest cell is a sperm and the largest is an egg, which makes sense. I defer to the other scientists to see if they have a better answer though!
Haha, I had to google this as well! I wondered whether red blood cells (which have no DNA at all) were even smaller than sperm (which have half the DNA of a normal cell) but sperm are still a bit smaller. Sperm only need half the normal amount of DNA because the DNA from sperm will be mixed with the DNA from an egg during fertilisation. I don’t know which are the smallest normal cells in the body.
I won’t google it though, but I’d be interested in what the other scientists think about platelets!? I always considered them as fragments of cells, but if you consider them as cells, surely they are the smallest in the body?
UPDATE. I’ve realised that bacterial cells inside our body (we have billions living in our gut and airways) are much smaller than our own human cells. Also sperm cells may be narrower than red blood cells but, including their flagellum, they are much longer.
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Max commented on :
UPDATE. I’ve realised that bacterial cells inside our body (we have billions living in our gut and airways) are much smaller than our own human cells. Also sperm cells may be narrower than red blood cells but, including their flagellum, they are much longer.