Reproductive Organs

In several metazoans, gonads are well-defined. Testes and ovaries take up dissimilar shapes and anatomical dispositions. In cases of certain hermaphrodites similar reproductive tissue from one part may generate sperms and from another part the ova. In sponges, gonads are poorly defined. Sperms and eggs arise from choanocytes and archaeocytes that are transformed into spermatogonia. Sperms leave the sponge by water currents. They enter choanocytes of other sponges that transport the sperms to the egg. Thus fertilisation takes place in situ by the intervention of choanocytes. In cnidarians, testes and ovaries are distinct. In a number of species of Hydra both tests and ovaries may be formed in the same individual (monoecious, bisexual) or in dissimilar individuals but in most species they are found in different individuals (dioecious unisexual). A single ovum produced in the ovary is fertilized in situ by the sperms generally coming from a different hydra. In colonial cnidarians the gonads are formed on the medusae from interstitial cells below the radial canals. They are formed in the epidermis of sub-umbrella. Fertilization is generally external, in water.