Compared to meiosis, this is another very complex system of cell division in eukaryotic cells. However meiosis is actually more complicated.

All eukaryotic cells contain their genetic information arranged in chromosomes. In order for normal growth to occur (this is vegetative or non-sexual reproduction), the cell needs to ensure that each daughter product receives the same set of chromosomes as the parent cell. There is no room for an accidental occasion of one too many chromosomes, or one too few chromosomes going to one end or the other. The division has to be exactly right. To this end, the cell makes sure that the correct collection of chromosomes is allotted to each daughter cell. This division process involves the use of microtubules, not evident in cells which lack a nucleus. Thus prokaryotes show no hints of how the eukaryotic vegetative cell division could ever have developed spontaneously.