A nutritive zooid (a specialized individual) in a colonial animal organism like a hydroid or bryozoan that is responsible for feeding the colony.
From Greek 'gastro-' (stomach) and 'zooid' (animal-like individual from 'zoon' meaning animal). The term describes specialized feeding members of colonial organisms discovered through 19th-century marine biology.
Imagine if some members of a human colony got only a mouth and digestive system to feed everyone else—that's what gastrozooids do in coral and hydroid colonies, showing how evolution can specialize body parts for group survival.
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