Then insect wings developed—the first fossil evidence of them dates to 324 million years ago, just after the Hexapod Gap ended. And, suddenly, the sky was theirs to inhabit.

Insect wings, the team confirmed, evolved from an outgrowth or “lobe” on the legs of an ancestral crustacean (yes, crustacean). After this marine animal had transitioned to land-dwelling about 300 ...

In the last 200 years, scientists have been studying the origin of insect wings using various approaches, such as paleontology, taxonomy and morphology. Tomoyasu uses a relatively new approach, ...

Looking at crustaceans for possible wing evolution made more sense to the researchers. “[If] you look in myriapods for where insect wings came from, you won’t find anything,” MBL research ...

But insect wings evolved so long ago, he adds, “it’s hard to tell what happened”. That hasn’t stopped researchers from trying to figure it out.

F or more than a century, researchers have argued over the evolutionary origin of insect wings. Although many hypotheses have been proposed, biologists typically support one of two competing ideas: ...

Insect Wings: Butterfly, Dragonfly & More in Flight. Posted: March 17, 2025 | Last updated: March 17, 2025. The content discusses the anatomy and flight mechanics of three main groups of flying ...

How did insect wings originate? This is a question that represents an unsolved mystery of insect evolution. Despite many years of research, it is still not entirely clear from which body structure ...

The wings of cicadas and dragonflies are natural bacteria killers, inspiring scientists who are searching for new ways to defeat drug-resistant superbugs. They've now revealed how bioinspired ...

The earwig insect has more folds in its wings than any other organism in the animal kingdom but uses minimal energy to move. Through simulations and creating a 4-D replica of these folds, researchers ...