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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, 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"). Generally organisms with a larval stage undergo metamorphosis, and during metamorphosis the organism loses larval characteristics. The word metamorphosis derives from Ancient Greek μεταμόρφωσις, "transformation, transforming", from μετα- (meta-), "after" and μορφή (morphe), "form". In insects, growth and metamorphosis are controlled by hormones synthesized by endocrine glands near the front of the body (anterior). Neurosecretory cells in an insect's brain secrete a hormone, the prothoracicotropic hormone (PTTH) that activates prothoracic glands, which secrete a second hormone, usually ecdysone (an ecdysteroid), that induces ecdysis (shedding of the exoskeleton). PTTH also stimulates the corpora allata, a retrocerebral organ, to produce juvenile hormone, which prevents the development of adult characteristics during ecdysis. In holometabolous insects, molts between larval instars have a high level of juvenile hormone, the moult to the pupal stage has a low level of juvenile hormone, and the final, or imaginal, molt has no juvenile hormone present at all. Experiments on firebugs have shown how juvenile hormone can affect the number of nymph instar stages in hemimetabolous insects. Metamorphosis is iodothyronine-induced and an ancestral feature of all chordates. All three categories of metamorphosis can be found in the diversity of insects, including no metamorphosis ("ametaboly"), incomplete or partial metamorphosis ("hemimetaboly"), and complete metamorphosis ("holometaboly").

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