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Not all insects are capable of flight. A number of apterous insects have secondarily lost their wings through evolution , while other more basal insects like silverfish never evolved wings. In some eusocial insects like ants and termites , only the alate reproductive castes develop wings during the mating season before shedding their wings ...
Insect flight is considerably different, due to their small size, rigid wings, and other anatomical differences. Turbulence and vortices play a much larger role in insect flight, making it even more complex and difficult to study than the flight of vertebrates. [18] There are two basic aerodynamic models of insect flight.
Insects such as hoverflies are capable of rapid and agile flight. Insects are the only group of invertebrates to have developed flight. The ancient groups of insects in the Palaeoptera, the dragonflies, damselflies and mayflies, operate their wings directly by paired muscles attached to points on each wing base that raise and lower them.
There are two basic aerodynamic models of insect flight. Most insects use a method that creates a spiralling leading edge vortex. [29] [30] Some very small insects use the fling and clap or Weis-Fogh mechanism in which the wings clap together above the insect's body and then fling apart. As they fling open, the air gets sucked in and creates a ...
Flies are capable of great manoeuvrability during flight due to the presence of the halteres. These act as gyroscopic organs and are rapidly oscillated in time with the wings; they act as a balance and guidance system by providing rapid feedback to the wing-steering muscles, and flies deprived of their halteres are unable to fly.
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Some four-winged insect orders, such as the Lepidoptera, have developed a wide variety of morphological wing coupling mechanisms in the imago which render these taxa as "functionally dipterous" (effectively two-winged) for efficient insect flight. [1] All but the most basal forms exhibit this wing coupling. [2]: 4266
Thrips are smaller insects and the flying species have relatively stiff wings. Due to their small size, they generate lift via clap and fling flapping rather than the usual leading-edge vortex generation of most insects. Many flying beetles, such as the ladybird, have forward wing cases which open out in flight but do not flap significantly ...