• There is no splitting of the centromere.
• The kinetochore fibers contract and the spindle or pole fibers elongate, As a result homologous chromosomes of each pair rather than the chromatids of a chromosome separate and move to the opposite poles.
• As a result, half the numbers of chromosomes that appear in the early prophase, move to each opposite pole. It is here that an actual reduction in the chromosome number from (2n) to (n) occurs. However, each chromosome found at the poles consists of two chromatids.

This is in contrast to the single stranded chromosomes in the anaphase of mitosis.