page_title: Metamorphosis
section_title: Recent research
hierarchical_section_title: Metamorphosis / Insects / Recent research
context_page_description: 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 body structure through cell growth and differentiation. Some insects, 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, incomplete metamorphosis, or no metamorphosis.
  Scientific usage of the term is technically precise, and it is not applied to general aspects of cell growth, including rapid growth spurts. References to "metamorphosis" in mammals are imprecise and only colloquial, but historically idealist ideas of transformation and morphology, as in Goethe's Metamorphosis of Plants, have influenced the development of ideas of evolution.
context_section_description: According to research from 2008, adult Manduca sexta is able to retain behavior learned as a caterpillar. Another caterpillar, the ornate moth caterpillar, is able to carry toxins that it acquires from its diet through metamorphosis and into adulthood, where the toxins still serve for protection against predators.
  Many observations published in 2002, and supported in 2013 indicate that programmed cell death plays a considerable role during physiological processes of multicellular organisms, particularly during embryogenesis, and metamorphosis.
  Below is the sequence of steps in the metamorphosis of the butterfly (illustrated):
   
  1 – The larva of a butterfly 
  
  2 – The pupa is now spewing the thread to form chrysalis 
  
  3 – The chrysalis is fully formed 
  
  4 – Adult butterfly coming out of the chrysalis
caption: Metamorphosis of butterfly (PSF)
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