The Polyzoa are colonial animals, the colony (zoarium) originating in most cases from a free-swimming larva, which attaches itself to some solid object and becomes metamorphosed into the primary individual, or "ancestrula."
The zoarium may rise up into erect growths composed of a single layer of zooids, the orifices of which are all on one surface, or of two layers of zooids placed back to back, with the orifices on both sides of the fronds or plates.
In Flustra and other forms belonging to this type, the zoarium is accordingly flexible, and either bilaminar or unilaminar.
In many calcareous forms, .both Cheilostomes and Cyclostomes, the zoarium is rendered flexible by the interposition of chitinous joints at intervals.
These are probably important in checking overgrowth by encrusting organisms, and in particular by preventing larvae from fixing on the zoarium.