paedomorphosis Evolutionary change that results in the retention of juvenile characters into adult life. It may be the result of neoteny or progenesis. It permits an ‘escape’ from specialization, and has been invoked to account for the origin of many taxa, from subspecies to phyla.

paedomorphosis Evolutionary change that results in the retention of juvenile characters into adult life. It may be the result of neoteny, of progenesis, or of postdisplacement. It permits an ‘escape’ from specialization, and has been invoked to account for the origin of many taxa, from subspecies to phyla.

paedomorphosis Evolutionary change that results in the retention of juvenile characters into adult life. It may be the result of neoteny, of progenesis, or of postdisplacement. It permits an ‘escape’ from specialization, and has been invoked to account for the origin of many taxa, from subspecies to phyla.

paedomorphosis The evolutionary process in which larval or juvenile features of an ancestral organism are displaced to the adult forms of its descendants. It can arise by neoteny or progenesis. Paedomorphosis is thought to have occurred in the evolution of higher chordates from free-swimming larval tunicates, in which metamorphosis was eventually lost and sexual development accelerated until larval forms were capable of breeding.