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The earliest fliers were similar to dragonflies with two sets of wings, direct flight muscles, and no ability to fold their wings over their abdomens. Most insects today, which evolved from those first fliers, have simplified to either one pair of wings or two pairs functioning as a single pair and using a system of indirect flight muscles. [32]
Insects that beat their wings fewer than one hundred times a second use synchronous muscle. Synchronous muscle is a type of muscle that contracts once for every nerve impulse. This generally produces less power and is less efficient than asynchronous muscle, which accounts for the independent evolution of asynchronous flight muscles in several ...
Neoptera (Ancient Greek néos ("new") + pterón ("wing")) is a classification group that includes most orders of the winged insects, specifically those that can flex their wings over their abdomens. This is in contrast with the more basal orders of winged insects (the "Palaeoptera" assemblage), which are unable to flex their wings in this way.
Most phylogenetically advanced insects have two pairs of wings located on the second and third thoracic segments. [1]: 22–24 Insects are the only invertebrates to have developed flight capability, and this has played an important part in their success. Insect flight is not very well understood, relying on turbulent aerodynamic effects. The ...
The insect order Neuroptera, or net-winged insects, includes the lacewings, mantidflies, antlions, and their relatives. The order consists of some 6,000 species . [ 1 ] Neuroptera is grouped together with the Megaloptera ( alderflies , fishflies , and dobsonflies ) and Raphidioptera (snakeflies) in the unranked taxon Neuropterida (once known as ...
Others, such as earwigs, provide maternal care, guarding their eggs and young. Insects can communicate with each other in a variety of ways. Male moths can sense the pheromones of female moths over great distances. Other species communicate with sounds: crickets stridulate, or rub their wings together, to attract a mate and repel other males.
The majority of insects have two pairs of wings. Flies possess only one set of lift-generating wings and one set of halteres. The order name for flies, "Diptera", literally means "two wings", but there is another order of insect which has evolved flight with only two wings: strepsipterans, or stylops; [2] they are the only other organisms that possess two wings and two halteres. [6]
The wings are moved by the rapid muscular contraction and expansion of the thorax. [11] The wings arise from the meso- and meta-thoracic segments and are similar in size in the basal groups. In more derived groups, the meso-thoracic wings are larger with more powerful musculature at their bases and more rigid vein structures on the costal edge. [7]