Gonozooid
Gonozooid
Reproductive individuals of colonial organisms
In biology, Gonozooids are any of the reproductive individuals of Tunicates, Bryozoan, or Hydrozoan colonies that produce gametes.[1][2] Gonozooids may play a role in labour division[3] or in alternation of generations.[4] A gonozooid typically has hardly any other function than reproduction, amounting to little more than a motile gonad.
The production of gonozooids amounts to one aspect of certain classes of alternation of generations. In biological terms the various forms are examples of evolutionary strategies and are largely analogous rather than homologous; the gonozooid phases of say, the Tunicata did not evolve from anything like say, a Bryozoan.[5]