Emilio wrote: In accordance with Webster, the dictionary, that is; dioecious refers to plants, as each plant having staminate flowers or pistillate flowers ie. female flowers and male flowers. Hi Emilio - Webster missed the biological boat on this one. The term dioceous, meaning separate sexes, is widely used in both botany and zoology. A few quick examples from my bookshelves: A Textbook of Entomology by H.H. Ross states "Insects are primarily dioeceous, though a few rare cases are known of hermaphroditic insects." Libby Hyman's classic series "The Invertebrates" uses the term frequently. A few quotes from Volume VI, Mollusca: "The solenogasters are hermaphroditic with a pair of hermaphroditic gonads, except the Chaetodermatidae, which are dioeceous, with single or paired gonads." "Chitons are dioeceous with the exception of Trachydermon raymondi, found by Heath to be hermaphroditic." "Neopilina is strictly dioeceous, with two pairs of lobulated gonads." "Prosobranchs are in general dioceous." And a few quotes from Invertebrate Zoology by R. Barnes: "The majority of pelecypods are dioeceous." "All chitons are dioeceous." "Many gastropods are dioeceous." (in reference to starfish): "With few exceptions, asteroids are dioeceous, having ten gonads, two in each arm." (in reference to marine worms): "Most polychaetes are dioeceous." (in reference to roundworms): "Most nematodes are dioeceous." So there you have it. In plants dioeceous means that a single plant of the species will produce only staminate (pollen producing, male) flowers, OR only pistillate (ovule-containing, female) flowers. In animals it means that a given individual of the species produces only male reproductive cells (sperm) OR only female reproductive cells (ova). Likewise the term hermaphroditic, meaning that one individual organism produces both kinds of cells) is used in both botany and zoology. A brief grammatical observation - the adjective hermaphroditic can refer either to a species or to an individual organism; therefore we have the noun hermaphrodite, to designate an individual of a hermaphroditic species. However, the term dioeceous can refer only to a species - an individual cannot be dioeceous. Therefore, there is no single noun meaning "an individual of a dioeceous species". Such an individual can only be referred to as "a female" or "a male". Paul M.