<P> The process of mitosis is divided into stages corresponding to the completion of one set of activities and the start of the next . These stages are prophase, prometaphase, metaphase, anaphase, and telophase . During mitosis, the chromosomes, which have already duplicated, condense and attach to spindle fibers that pull one copy of each chromosome to opposite sides of the cell . The result is two genetically identical daughter nuclei . The rest of the cell may then continue to divide by cytokinesis to produce two daughter cells . Producing three or more daughter cells instead of normal two is a mitotic error called tripolar mitosis or multipolar mitosis (direct cell triplication / multiplication). Other errors during mitosis can induce apoptosis (programmed cell death) or cause mutations . Certain types of cancer can arise from such mutations . </P> <P> Mitosis occurs only in eukaryotic cells . Prokaryotic cells, which lack a nucleus, divide by a different process called binary fission . Mitosis varies between organisms . For example, animal cells undergo an "open" mitosis, where the nuclear envelope breaks down before the chromosomes separate, whereas fungi undergo a "closed" mitosis, where chromosomes divide within an intact cell nucleus . Most animal cells undergo a shape change, known as mitotic cell rounding, to adopt a near spherical morphology at the start of mitosis . Most human cells are produced by mitotic cell division . Important exceptions include the gametes--sperm and egg cells--which are produced by meiosis . </P> <P> Cell division was first discovered by the German botanist Hugo von Mohl in 1835 as he worked with the green alga Cladophora glomerata . The German zoologist Otto Bütschli might have claimed the discovery of the process presently known as "mitosis", a term coined by Walther Flemming in 1882 . </P> <P> Mitosis was discovered in frog, rabbit, and cat cornea cells in 1873 and described for the first time by the Polish histologist Wacław Mayzel in 1875 . The term is derived from the Greek word μίτος mitos "warp thread". </P>

What are the two stages of mitotic phase