How did insect wings evolve?

Fossil evidence shows that the earliest winged insects appeared in the late Carboniferous period. That was about 300 million years ago. Tall and dense forests grew everywhere on the earth. However, the tree species were completely different from modern large trees. They were mainly tropical ferns, such as horsetail, stone pine and various woody ferns. kind. Modern ferns are all dwarf plants, but in the distant Paleozoic era, ferns could grow into towering trees, some even up to 40 meters high.

carboniferous landscape

Winged insects appeared in such an environment. They flew around the forest in groups, and their species quickly became more and more diverse. In fact, these tall trees are the environmental conditions for insects to acquire wings, because only after insects first climb trees and adapt to life in trees can they have the need and possibility to generate wings.

Although the earliest fossils of winged insects were discovered in the late Carboniferous period, it is speculated based on various facts that the origin of winged insects occurred at the end of the Devonian period or the early Carboniferous period. There are already coal seams in the Devonian strata, indicating that forests already appeared at that time. Insects living in these forests first use the thoracodorsal lateral processes to glide between trees; then, based on gliding, the result of natural selection causes the thoracodorsal lateral processes to gradually expand from generation to generation, and the gliding distance of the insects can be longer. It goes further and further, and finally, the thoracodorsal lateral process finally develops into wings that can fly freely.

The creation of wings is the most important event in the history of insect evolution. The production of wings caused great changes in the insect's thorax structure, muscle system and entire organism, promoted the development of the nervous system, and also meant the complexity of insect behavior. Thanks to the acquisition of wings, insects can adapt to a wider variety of environments, thus opening up a wider living space. With the help of flight, insects can disperse, migrate, court mates, find food, and avoid enemies over a wider range. By then, amphibians, the vertebrate group, had landed, and winged insects were able to more effectively escape predation by amphibians as well as scorpions and spiders. All this laid a good foundation for the future prosperity and development of Insecta.

In the evolutionary history of life on earth, insects were the first animals to acquire the ability to fly, at least 50 million years earlier than reptiles and birds. Remember, the earth is vast

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