# What is the evolutionary derivation of insect wings? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 24, 2009, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-evolutionary-derivation-of-insect-wings/507446 "2009-08-24T01:40:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-evolutionary-derivation-of-insect-wings/507446/1 "2009-08-24T01:40:46Z")
I’m reading a book called [Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads](http://www.amazon.com/Stuffed-Animals-Pickled-Heads-Evolution/dp/0195163362), which is a history of natural history museums. The author, in one of the early chapters, talks about how the similarities between a bird’s wing and bat’s wing are a homolog, but the similarities between a bird’s wing and a butterfly’s wing are an analog (i.e., a bird’s and bat’s wings are derived from the same structure (the forelegs) and a bird’s and butterfly’s wings are derived from different structures, but perform a similar purpose). But he doesn’t mention what that structure is in insects. So my question is, from what body structure do insect wings derive? Did they develop from a pair of legs? Did they develop from…I don’t know. I’m not enough of an amateur entomologist to even come up with any other theories. I’m coming up to a cognitive blank wall on this one. Anyone know? Any Doper entomologists around? Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Henrichek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5daacb/32.png) [@Henrichek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Henrichek)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-evolutionary-derivation-of-insect-wings/507446/2 "2009-08-24T01:48:36Z")
I don’t know the answer to this question, but found this on Wikipedia [Insect wings](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insect_wing) [QUOTE=Wikipedia article “Insect wing”] How and why insect wings evolved is not well understood. Two main theories on the origins of insect flight are that wings developed from paranotal lobes, extensions of the thoracic terga; and that they are modifications of movable abdominal gills as found on aquatic naiads of mayflies.[1] [/QUOTE] The citation is: Grimaldi, David (2005). Evolution of the Insects. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Here’s the section on insect wings in that book (my google books links have failed before): > **[Evolution of the Insects](https://books.google.com/books?id=Ql6Jl6wKb88C&lpg=PP1&dq=evolution+of+the+insects&pg=PA156&hl=en)** > > This book chronicles the complete evolutionary history of insects--their living diversity and relationships as well as 400 million years of fossils. Introductory sections cover the living species diversity of insects, methods of reconstructing... ---
**Author:** ![Fastidiots](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@Fastidiots](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fastidiots)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-evolutionary-derivation-of-insect-wings/507446/3 "2009-08-24T01:49:28Z")
I vaguely remember a conversation I had about this. IIRC they is no analog, because an insects wings pretty well evolved from nothing, a few scales on the back. Something to do with originially cooling the body, or evaporation, or sumsuch. Sorry I can’t contribute more. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-evolutionary-derivation-of-insect-wings/507446/4 "2009-08-24T03:23:46Z")
I had understood that the standard arthropod body plan had two appendages per body segment, and some of those appendages ended up evolving into legs, wings, antennae, mouthparts, etc., while groups of segments fused into larger-scale structures like the head, thorax, and abdomen seen in insects. Certainly you can tweak fruit flies into growing extra legs where their antennae should be, or the like. ---
**Author:** ![Henrichek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5daacb/32.png) [@Henrichek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Henrichek)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-evolutionary-derivation-of-insect-wings/507446/5 "2009-08-24T03:28:31Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I had understood that the standard arthropod body plan had two appendages per body segment, and some of those appendages ended up evolving into legs, wings, antennae, mouthparts, etc., while groups of segments fused into larger-scale structures like the head, thorax, and abdomen seen in insects. Certainly you can tweak fruit flies into growing extra legs where their antennae should be, or the like. That sounds a lot like _Spore_. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-evolutionary-derivation-of-insect-wings/507446/6 "2009-08-24T03:35:32Z")
One of my favorite professors of biology explains (as he was replying to a creationist point, one should ignore the shots to Behe.): > **[Pharyngula - Hotell anbefalinger Barcelona](https://www.hotelsin-barcelona.net/no/pharyngula.html)** > > Alle hoteller i Barcelona. Det beste utvalget av Barcelona hoteller med anmeldelser og kart. Bestill på forhånd og lagre. > [@](#): > > One of the common creationist claims I plan to shoot down is the whole idea of “irreducible complexity” as an obstacle to evolution. I was going to bring up two ideas that invalidate it: the principle of scaffolding (which I discussed here), and exaptation, in which features evolved for some other purpose than the one that they play in an organism we observe today. I was looking for a good example, and then John Wilkins fortuitously sent me a paper that filled the bill (we evilutionists, you know, are sneakily sending each other data behind the scenes to help in our assault on ignorance. We’re devious that way.) > > The question is how insect wings evolved. Wings are a classic issue in evolution, because they aren’t going to function for flight at all until they’ve achieved a certain minimal size—half a wing isn’t any good at all for getting an animal in the air, so any explanation for their selective evolution has to incorporate alternative functions: as stabilizers for cursorial animals, for instance, or traps for catching small prey on the run. > > In insects, we have an interesting origin explanation for wings: they’re modified gills. It makes sense. For gills, you want to have an increased surface area for gas exchange, and you want them exposed to the external environment. Most animals evolved sophisticated gills with convoluted surfaces and tucked them away in a protective chamber, with a mechanism to pump water over them, but others took a simpler path. Mayflies, for instance, have flat vanes on each segment in the larval stage as respiratory surfaces—they even look like wings. Arthropods evolved a recipe for flat, cuticular structures to serve as gills, and perhaps one explanation for the evolution of wings is that they simply re-evoked that recipe as adults, used it for gliding, and then expanded and elaborated on the formula incrementally to generate flapping, powered flight. > [@](#): > > We also have a lot of information about patterns of gene expression in these structures in insects. A gene called engrailed (en) is expressed in just the posterior half of each segment, and this gene has the same pattern in crustaceans. There is also a gene called Distal-less (Dll) that is expressed in all appendages; that one isn’t quite as interesting for this study. The genes that are particularly provocative are pdm, which is expressed only in the insect wing and not in the leg, and apterous (ap), which is expressed only in the dorsal half of the wing and in a narrow ring on the leg. The question is whether a) crustaceans also have pdm and ap, and b) if they do, are they expressed in the epipod, which would suggest that wings and epipods are homologous structures. > > And the answer is yes to both. Genes homologous to the Drosophila ap and pdm genes were identified in Artemia, and they are active in just the epipods of the crustacean limb. Pdm is similarly active in the epipods of the crayfish. > > What it implies in the evolution of the arthropods is that the wings of pterygote insects are derived from epipod gills, or alternatively, have coopted a molecular pathway that first arose in epipods. While most of the terrestrial arthropods have been simplifying their limbs, the winged insects retained one element that gave them the power of flight. > > It’s this kind of history that invalidates Behe’s notion of irreducible complexity. Sure, it’s hard to imagine why an aquatic arthropod would begin the stepwise Darwinian process of assembling a set of wings for flight, but what this work shows is that there is an incremental pathway for expanding epipods as aqueous respiratory surfaces. The mistake creationists make, which seems intrinsic to their nature, is to assign functions erroneously to adaptations, when the simpler idea that structures have only local and immediate functions is far more productive over the long term. It’s the same with Behe’s favorite example, the flagellum: if it evolved as a secretory pump first, it wouldn’t have required every feature of an “outboard motor” to function. His mistake is to assume that every step in its evolution was part of a drive to make a motor. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-evolutionary-derivation-of-insect-wings/507446/7 "2009-08-24T04:14:27Z")
[QUOTE=GIGObuster’s prof] Wings are a classic issue in evolution, because they aren’t going to function for flight at all until they’ve achieved a certain minimal size—half a wing isn’t any good at all for getting an animal in the air, [/QUOTE] This is commonly refuted (e.g. by Dawkins) by citing animals such as “flying” squirrels, which don’t really fly but can do some crude gliding using skin flaps that are very far from being wings. IOW, half a wing may allow some aerodynamic action that turns out to be rather useful. Ditto for the notion that “half an eye” is of no use: even crude sensitivity to light can be very handy. ---
**Author:** ![wierdaaron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/eada6e/32.png) [@wierdaaron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wierdaaron)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-evolutionary-derivation-of-insect-wings/507446/8 "2009-08-24T04:56:50Z")
Yeah, but if you only had half a mind, you’d never get anything done. Why, I’ve got half a mind to finish this se ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-evolutionary-derivation-of-insect-wings/507446/9 "2009-08-24T05:34:53Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > This is commonly refuted (e.g. by Dawkins) by citing animals such as “flying” squirrels, which don’t really fly but can do some crude gliding using skin flaps that are very far from being wings. IOW, half a wing may allow some aerodynamic action that turns out to be rather useful. > > Ditto for the notion that “half an eye” is of no use: even crude sensitivity to light can be very handy. Well I think that that is po-ta-to po-tah-to territory and Myers is answering to a creationist talking point. PZ Myers is not against Dawkins. He is indeed saying that the half wings will not function for \*\*full \*\*flight. This does not exclude that there are other advantages or functions that half a wing offers to insects. > [@](#): > > The mistake creationists make, which seems intrinsic to their nature, is to assign functions erroneously to adaptations, when the simpler idea that structures have only local and immediate functions is far more productive over the long term. It’s the same with Behe’s favorite example, the flagellum: if it evolved as a secretory pump first, it wouldn’t have required every feature of an “outboard motor” to function. His mistake is to assume that every step in its evolution was part of a drive to make a motor. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-evolutionary-derivation-of-insect-wings/507446/10 "2009-08-24T05:41:04Z")
> [@Henrichek](#): > > That sounds a lot like _Spore_. They’re based in something called toolkit genes, and Will Wright did some research in the course of making the game. [How to Build a Better Being](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nkR8lwrrks&feature=PlayList&p=F0B20340E2BFCB30&index=0) from the pack-in DVD with Spore Galactic, it’s a NatGeo documentary. ---
**Author:** ![Henrichek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5daacb/32.png) [@Henrichek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Henrichek)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-evolutionary-derivation-of-insect-wings/507446/11 "2009-08-24T07:13:24Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > They’re based in something called toolkit genes, and Will Wright did some research in the course of making the game. [How to Build a Better Being](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nkR8lwrrks&feature=PlayList&p=F0B20340E2BFCB30&index=0) from the pack-in DVD with Spore Galactic, it’s a NatGeo documentary. Thanks, I didn’t know that. It sounds interesting. I’ll take a look and see what I can find about toolkit genes. ---
**Author:** ![ianzin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ed655f/32.png) [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-evolutionary-derivation-of-insect-wings/507446/12 "2009-08-24T09:51:00Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > Ditto for the notion that “half an eye” is of no use: even crude sensitivity to light can be very handy. I am not a creationist, I am in agreement with Richard Dawkins concerning just about everything we might conceivably agree on, and I am moderately familiar with some of the arguments that tend to pass back and forth between people who do and do not believe in creationism or ID. However, I suspect you may be mis-representing the ‘half an eye’ debate and simplifying it. As I understand it, the argument put forward by the creationists or others who get involved in the ‘irreducible complexity’ argument it is not about degrees of light sensitivity. Everyone agrees that it can make sense to say some degree of light sensitivity is better than none, and the all the gradual stages from ‘single light-sensitive cell’ to ‘human eye’ might serve some purpose. I believe the argument is that the eye mechanism doesn’t serve any purpose unless there is an optic nerve to connect it to the brain, and the brain has whatever ‘wiring and software’ is needed to make sense of the signal in a useful way; and that the optic nerve and the brain circuitry serve no purpose unless there is an eye to connect them to. The point the creationists and their ilk like to make is that there is no evolutionary advantage to either of these mechanisms unless the other is already in place. It is not a valid argument, it is easy to refute and it is as sweetly deranged as the other rubbish that creationists like to spout. However, if we over-simplify or mis-state the (rotten) arguments they put forward, we are just giving them ammunition and an excuse to cry ‘Straw man!’ with tedious predictability. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-evolutionary-derivation-of-insect-wings/507446/13 "2009-08-24T10:03:10Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > There is also a gene called Distal-less (Dll) that is expressed in all appendages; that one isn’t quite as interesting for this study. Caution : bad joke ahead. Interesting. So, if a moth is born without that gene and it can’t fly, it’s “error in flight process, Dll not found” ? ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-evolutionary-derivation-of-insect-wings/507446/14 "2009-08-24T12:32:44Z")
> [@ianzin](#): > > … you may be mis-representing the ‘half an eye’ debate and simplifying it. To be sure, my single short sentence was not intended to be a comprehensive discussion of the issue. > [@](#): > > … if we over-simplify or mis-state the (rotten) arguments they put forward, we are just giving them ammunition and an excuse to cry ‘Straw man!’ with tedious predictability. Perhaps. But I see no need to pitch every discussion as if it were part of a creation/evolution debate. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-evolutionary-derivation-of-insect-wings/507446/15 "2009-08-24T18:14:05Z")
I’ve also seen speculation that movable panels in the back of an insect would be useful for capturing solar heat even before they were useful for flying. Thus they might have been selected for increasing size and muscular control as adjustable solar panels, then later become useful in flight. Similarly, although I can’t find a cite, I think I’ve seen a nature program showing some kind of dune beetle that raises its wing covers to catch dew or mist coming in off the ocean. Perhaps this was South Africa? The droplets condense on the wing covers and run down to the beetle. ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-evolutionary-derivation-of-insect-wings/507446/16 "2009-08-24T18:23:38Z")
The [stonefly](http://www.rps.psu.edu/jun95/marden.html) demonstrates that wings–even when they are quite small-- are very useful for locomotion among water-skimming insects. Water-skimmers whose wings are no larger than the gills on living and fossilized aquatic insects put them to good use in propelling themselves across the water, or even simply waiting for a breeze to sail them to shore. So you don’t ever need to become airborne at all for wings to be of use. ---
**Author:** ![Henrichek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5daacb/32.png) [@Henrichek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Henrichek)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-evolutionary-derivation-of-insect-wings/507446/17 "2009-08-24T18:30:31Z")
It’s interesting that there are so many evolutionary paths that could lead to the development of wings and later flight. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-evolutionary-derivation-of-insect-wings/507446/18 "2009-08-24T18:38:54Z")
Wow…thanks, folks! Great answers! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-evolutionary-derivation-of-insect-wings/507446/19 "2009-08-24T19:02:18Z")
> [@](#): > > It’s interesting that there are so many evolutionary paths that could lead to the development of wings and later flight. Even more, if you count all the examples of almost-flight gliding. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-evolutionary-derivation-of-insect-wings/507446/20 "2009-08-24T20:43:54Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Similarly, although I can’t find a cite, I think I’ve seen a nature program showing some kind of dune beetle that raises its wing covers to catch dew or mist coming in off the ocean. Perhaps this was South Africa? The droplets condense on the wing covers and run down to the beetle. [Darkling beetles](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alogenius_cavifrons.jpg) from Namibia and Western South Africa. Locally known as tok-tokkies for their knocking on wood with their abdomens (like deathwatch beetles do) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-evolutionary-derivation-of-insect-wings/507446.md?page=2)