Statoblast

• Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
  • n Statoblast (Zoöl) One of a peculiar kind of internal buds, or germs, produced in the interior of certain Bryozoa and sponges, especially in the fresh-water species; -- also called winter buds.☞ They are protected by a firm covering, and are usually destined to perpetuate the species during the winter season. They burst open and develop in the spring. In some fresh-water sponges they serve to preserve the species during the dry season. See Illust. under Phylactolæmata.
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• • n statoblast One of the peculiar internal asexual buds developed in the body-cavity of the fresh-water or phylactolæmatous polyzoans, comparable to the gemmules of the fresh-water sponges, and serving for reproduction. These germs of new individuals to be reproduced agamogenetically by internal gemmation are formed in the funiculus or mesentery of the polyzoan; on the death of the parent organism, they are ruptured, and give exit to a young animal essentially like the parent. The fact that statoblasts contain no germinal vesicle, and never exhibit the phenomena of segmentation or yolk-cleavage, is conclusive against their being ova or eggs; and, moreover, an ovary producing ova occurs elsewhere in the same individual that produces statoblasts. Also called winter bud. See cut under Plumatella.
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