Mitosis is used throughout your body for the development and repair and replacement of old cells throughout your life. The purpose is producing identical daughter cells without any loss of genetic information.
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Image credit: based on "The process of meiosis: Figure 1" by OpenStax College, Biology, CC BY 3.0
Meiosis, on the other hand, is a special form of cell division that produces reproductive cells. It should not be confused with mitosis, which is the division of one cell into two identical daughter cells. Much like mitosis, meiosis begins with one cell that splits into two. However, the two cells then divide into two more cells each. These four cells each have half the number of chromosomes as the parent cell. They are gametes, or sex cells. It is through the combination of a female gamete and a male gamete from another organism that sexual reproduction occurs and another, unique individual is produced.
To explain it in another way, meiosis takes us from a diploid cell (a cell with two sets of chromosomes) to a haploid cell (a cell with one set of chromosomes). When an egg (haploid cell) combine in fertilization with a sperm (haploid cell) the two haploid cells form a complete diploid set, thus making a new genome.
Meiosis is completed in several stages that occur in two processes. The first process is when the cell divides into two cells. The second process is when the cells split again to form four cells. These processes can be called meiosis 1 and meiosis II.
