Meiosis The production of offspring by sexual reproduction includes the fusion of two gametes, each with a complete haploid set of chromosomes. Gametes are formed from specialized diploid cells. This specialized kind of cell division that reduces the chromosome number by half results in the production of haploid daughter cells. This kind of division is called meiosis. History Meiosis was discovered and described for the first time in sea urchin eggs in 1876 by the German biologist Oscar Hertwig . It was described again in 1883, at the level of chromosomes , by the Belgian zoologist Edouard Van Beneden , in Ascaris roundworm eggs. The significance of meiosis for reproduction and inheritance, however, was described only in 1890 by German biologist August Weismann , who noted that two cell divisions were necessary to transform one diploid cell into four haploid cells if the number of chromosomes had to be maintained. In 1911 the American geneticist Thomas Hunt Morgan detec...
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