Egg cell

Egg cell
A human egg cell with surrounding corona radiata
Details
Identifiers
Latin	ovum
Greek	ωάριον (ōárion)
MeSH	D010063
FMA	67343
Anatomical terms of microanatomy [edit on Wikidata]

The egg cell or ovum (pl.: ova) is the female reproductive cell, or gamete,^[1] in most anisogamous organisms (organisms that reproduce sexually with a larger, female gamete and a smaller, male one). The term is used when the female gamete is not capable of movement (non-motile). If the male gamete (sperm) is capable of movement, the type of sexual reproduction is also classified as oogamous. A nonmotile female gamete formed in the oogonium of some algae, fungi, oomycetes, or bryophytes is an oosphere.^[2] When fertilized, the oosphere becomes the oospore.^{[clarification needed]}

When egg and sperm fuse together during fertilisation, a diploid cell (the zygote) is formed, which rapidly grows into a new organism.