Article
Article
Animal growth
Article By:
Scanes, Colin G. Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, Mississippi.
Last reviewed:October 2021
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1036/1097-8542.035600
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- Animal growth, published June 2019:Download PDF
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The increase in size or weight of an animal. Animal growth is an increase in an animal’s size or mass over its lifetime. Growth, which is often associated with progressive development, may extend throughout the animal's life or it may be limited to when that species is fully mature (see illustration). Various processes are involved in animal growth. These processes include hyperplasia, or increase in cell number due to cell proliferation (cell division or mitosis) and recruitment from stem cell populations; hypertrophy, or increase in the size of cells; and differentiation (in which precursor cells achieve mature functioning; often, this process cannot be reversed). See also: Animal; Cell differentiation; Cell division; Cell senescence; Developmental biology; Embryonic differentiation; Mitosis; Morphogenesis; Stem cell
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