In this video, we're going to distinguish between cilia and flagella. And so the microtubules that we introduced in our last lesson video as one of the major components of the cytoskeleton are actually a major structural component of 2 cellular structures, cilia and flagella. And both cilia and flagella provide cell movement, which means that the microtubules are very important for cell movement as we introduced in our last lesson video. And so down below, we're going to distinguish between cilia and flagella. Now cilia consist of multiple short hair-like structures that move like oars and can either move objects in the surroundings relative to the cell or they can help provide cell movement itself, allowing the cell to move throughout its environment.

Now flagella, on the other hand, instead of being short, they are actually much longer, tail-like structures that actually move like a whip in order to provide cell movement. And so flagella typically are not going to be used to move other objects in the surrounding like what cilia can sometimes be used for. Flagella are mainly used to provide cell movement. And so down below, we can take a look at our image to distinguish cilia and flagella. And so over here on the left-hand side, we're showing you a scanning micrograph of cilia.

And so, you can see that these structures that you see here are the short hair-like structures that we were talking about before that can move like oars in order to either move objects in the surroundings or to move the cell itself. And so, notice that there are multiple cilia here and, they are shorter hair-like structures. Now over here on the right-hand side, we're showing you a scanning electron micrograph of some sperm cells. And so these sperm cells have flagella. And so you can see that here is the body of the cell and the long tail that comes off of the body of the cell right here are referred to as the flagella.

And so these tails are much longer than the short cilia. And, once again, they move like whips to provide cell movement. And so this here concludes our introduction to cilia and flagella and how they're both made of microtubules, which means that microtubules are important for cell movement. And so, we'll be able to get some practice applying some of the concepts that we've learned here as we move forward in our course. So I'll see you all in our next video.