Botany - Animal Kingdom Question with Solution | TestHub

Hydra can also reproduce sexually. Sexual reproduction is seasonal, the season depending on species, but generally summer or autumn. There is no free sexual medusoid stage and gonads develop on the column of the polyp. These gonads are not really true organs, but accumulations of gametes produced from interstitial cells that cause swellings in the epidermis on the sides of the column. Usually, several testes develop on the anterior half of the column and usually one ovary on the posterior half of the column. A thinning of the epidermis occurs over the testis, developing into a nipple-like papilla which eventually ruptures, shedding ripe sperm from the testes. The spermatozoa are flagellated and swim towards ripe ovaries. In a ripe ovary, the epidermis has ruptured to form a pore through which the sperm can swim to reach the oocyte. The ovary begins as a group of cells, but the larger of these cells eventually engulfs the others to form a single oocyte or egg cell.