Pl. -thecae. [f. SPERMA- + THECA.] A receptacle in the oviduct of female insects and invertebrates, in which fecundation of the ova takes place.
1826. Kirby & Sp., Entomol., xlii. IV. 147, note. Perhaps likewise the organ discovered by M. L. Dufour in Scolia … may be a spermatheca.
1841. T. R. Jones, Anim. Kingd., 283–4. The spermatheca has a small accessory vesicle … connected with it.
1888. Rolleston & Jackson, Anim. Life, 206. The female apparatus is completed by two pairs of vesicular spermathecae.
Hence Spermathecal a., of or belonging to the spermatheca.
1883. Lankester, in Encycl. Brit., XVI. 658/2. On reaching the point where the spermathecal duct debouches they are impregnated by the spermatozoa.
1900. Proc. Zool. Soc., June, 169. In the region of the spermathecal apertures.
