Abstract
In mosaic gonads of gynandromorphs of Drosophila, the amount of female and the amount of male somatic tissues add up to roughly one unit. This suggests that the somatic component of the gonads in males and females derives from a single common primordium, i.e. testes and ovaries appear to be homologous. Fate-mapping places this primordium ventrally of the sternites into the mesodermal region of the fourth and fifth abdominal segment. This location is corroborated by the observation that defects in and around abdominal segment 4 and absence of the gonads are strongly correlated in animals damaged by the mutation osk301. Gonads were mosaic with a frequency of 10.5% which indicates that the gonadal primordium originates from about 10 progenitor cells, and together with other evidence, suggests that these progenitor cells are located within a single segment (or parasegment).
