Metamorphosis

This article is about the biological process. For the Franz Kafka novella, see The Metamorphosis. For other uses, see Metamorphosis (disambiguation).
A dragonfly in its final moult, undergoing metamorphosis, it begins transforming from its nymph form to an adult

Metamorphosis is a biological process by which an animal physically develops including birth transformation or hatching, involving a conspicuous and relatively abrupt change in the animal's body structure through cell growth and differentiation.[1] Some insects, jellyfish, fish, amphibians, mollusks, crustaceans, cnidarians, echinoderms, and tunicates undergo metamorphosis, which is often accompanied by a change of nutrition source or behavior.[2] Animals can be divided into species that undergo complete metamorphosis ("holometaboly"), incomplete metamorphosis ("hemimetaboly"), or no metamorphosis ("ametaboly").[3]

Generally organisms with a larval stage undergo metamorphosis, and during metamorphosis the organism loses larval characteristics. [4]

  1. ^ "metamorphosis | biology | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2022-04-01.
  2. ^ "What animals undergo incomplete metamorphosis? – Easierwithpractice.com". easierwithpractice.com. Retrieved 2022-04-01.
  3. ^ Truman, James W. (2019-12-02). "The Evolution of Insect Metamorphosis". Current Biology. 29 (23): R1252–R1268. Bibcode:2019CBio...29R1252T. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2019.10.009. ISSN 0960-9822. PMID 31794762. S2CID 208541817.
  4. ^ Hadfield, Michael G. (1 December 2000). "Why and how marine-invertebrate larvae metamorphose so fast". Seminars in Cell & Developmental Biology. 11 (6): 437–443. doi:10.1006/scdb.2000.0197. ISSN 1084-9521. PMID 11145872. Retrieved 7 March 2022.