In this video, we're going to introduce animal cell cytokinesis. And so in animal cells, cytokinesis is characterized by the formation of what's known as a cleavage furrow. And so a cleavage furrow is really just a small indentation of actin filaments mainly and some myosin filaments as well at the center of a dividing cell. And so this cleavage furrow ultimately is going to result in the pinching of the cytoplasm and the separation of the 2 cells.
And so if we take a look at our image down below over here on the left-hand side notice we're showing you a cell right after mitosis, and recall that mitosis technically ends with a single cell that has 2 nuclei. And so notice that we still have a single cell here, this is a cell that is still a single cell because the cytoplasm is still connected here, And notice that there are 2 nuclei here. And so, what you'll notice is that mitosis technically does not end with 2 cells. And so mitosis needs to be followed up by the process of cytokinesis and cytokinesis is what's going to separate the cytoplasm, essentially separating this single cell to form 2 cells.
And so during animal cell cytokinesis, a structure referred to as the cleavage furrow is going to form. And really the cleavage furrow is just this indentation, that you can see that forms and the indentation is forming from the result of these contractile actin microfilaments and myosin filaments that form in the middle, or in the center of the dividing cell. And so ultimately this cleavage furrow is going to continue to pinch off the cytoplasm until the cytoplasm has been divided and the 2 cells have their own cytoplasm and their own nucleus. And so these here would represent the daughter cells that result.
And so technically, telophase which is the final phase of mitosis and cytokinesis are going to occur simultaneously, which is why mitosis is technically so highly linked to creating 2 daughter cells. But technically it's the process of mitosis and cytokinesis that leads to the 2 daughter cells. And so this here concludes our introduction to animal cell cytokinesis and how it's characterized by the formation of the cleavage furrow. And this is going to be different when we look at plant cell cytokinesis in our next video. So I'll see you all there.