Metamorphosis  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Revision as of 11:16, 17 June 2007; view current revision
←Older revision | Newer revision→
Jump to: navigation, search

Related e

Wikipedia
Wiktionary
Shop


Featured:

Metamorphosis is a biological process by which an animal physically develops after birth or hatching, involving a conspicuous and relatively abrupt change in the animal's form or structure through cell growth and differentiation. Some insects, amphibians, molluscs, crustaceans, echinoderms and tunicates undergo metamorphosis, which is usually (but not always) accompanied by a change of habitat or behaviour.

Scientific usage of the term is exclusive, and is not applied to general aspects of cell growth, including rapid growth spurts. References to "metamorphosis" in mammals are imprecise and only colloquial. According to Williamson, metamorphosis represents a change in taxon during development.

See also




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Metamorphosis" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

Personal tools