Definition of "metanephros" []

• The third and final excretory organ that develops in a vertebrate embryo. In birds, reptiles, and mammals it replaces the mesonephros as the functional excretory organ and develops into the adult kidney. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The secretory tubules are developed from the metanephros, which is moulded over the growing end of the diverticulum from the Wolffian duct."
• "The metanephros arises in the intermediate cell mass, caudal to the mesonephros, which it resembles in structure."
• "Each kidney has a two-fold origin, part arising from the metanephros, and part as a diverticulum from the hind-end of the Wolffian duct, close to where the latter opens into the cloaca (Figs. 1115, 1116)."