Metaphase Strasburger (1884) originally introduced this term for the stage of nulear division after (Gk. meta) the chromosomes (ch) have divided into chromatids, but from about 1905, with the realization that the chromosomes are already double when nuclear division begins, he used the term in the now universally adopted sense of the stage in mitosis or meiosis I or II during which the chromosomes are aligned along the equatorial (metaphase) plate (ep) of the cell and kinetochores come into contact with the microtubuli of the spindle apparatus (s).
Prometaphase
Metaphase