Morphotype

In biology, a shared shape and general appearance, regardless of the presence or absence of any common origin or relationship. The term may be applied to cells or organelles, or to parts of organisms such as scales or leaves, to whole organisms, or even to multi-species colonies of symbiotic organisms. Morphotype is a convenient concept when the relationships between similar entities is unclear, as may be the case in paleontology, or when it is the morphological similarities themselves that are of primary interest, as in comparative xenobiology. Xenobiologists, for instance, may speak of the 'prokaryotic morphotype' in describing simpler life forms on a variety of unrelated life-bearing worlds.