Anaboly

anaboly [ə′nab·ə·lī]

(evolution)

The addition, through evolutionary differentiation, of a new terminal stage to the morphogenetic pattern.

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Anaboly 

or extension or prolongation; a variety of phyloembryogeny in which alteration of the characteristics of mature organisms occurs as a result of the addition of new stages at the end of the period of form development, which is extended in such a case. Characteristics appearing in the late ontogenetic stages of ancestors may show up in the descendants either in the same stages or in earlier ones. The term was introduced by the Russian scientist A. N. Severtsov (1912), who believed that the recapitulation of ancestral characteristics during ontogenesis of descendants is a consequence of development by anaboly. An example of anaboly is the knitting of cartilage and bones in the skeleton of mature vertebrates in whose ancestors they were separate.