Metamorphosis

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. 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. Animals can be divided into species that undergo complete metamorphosis ("holometaboly"), incomplete metamorphosis ("hemimetaboly"), or no metamorphosis ("ametaboly").

This article is about the biological process. For the Franz Kafka novella, see The Metamorphosis. For other uses, see Metamorphosis (disambiguation).

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

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