Aviation was invented in nature at least three times - by birds, bats and insects. In the absence of fossils, precisely the older flight evolution - that of the insects has hardly been studied * A new study tries to correct the distortion
But how did insects develop their ability to fly? This question is still controversial. The small, boneless insects are rarely fossilized, and unfortunately there is a gap of 65 million years, right at the critical stage of wing development, in the fossil record. About 390 million years ago, the fossils show the presence of a terrestrial, wingless insect, very similar in appearance to the modern bristletail and silverfish insects. The researchers estimate that this insect was the father of all modern insects. 325 million years ago, winged insects were already flying in the air. But what happened between these two points in time? There are two competing theories about the origin of insect wings: one assumes that the bristles of terrestrial insects from 390 million years ago evolved directly into wings. The second introduces an intermediate stage into the story - according to which, the origin of flying insects is in insects that moved to live in water, and developed gills to adapt to their new habitat. These gills, or gill covers, later became wings.
In the absence of fossils, a group of researchers from the United States and Panama decided to adopt a more experimental approach to solving the puzzle. As mentioned, the modern tails are very reminiscent of the ancient insects, before they began to fly. The tail bristles, as their name suggests, have long bristles, which form a kind of tail but actually come out of the insect's chest. In addition they have long tentacles, and shorter bristles along their abdomen. The leading theories regarding the development of flight in birds and bats hold that before the development of modern flight wings, the animals developed structures of pre-wings that were used for soaring from the tops of trees, as a step on the way to full flight. Are the tail bristles the insect version of pre-wings, which allow for flight? If the answer to this is positive, this will strengthen the theory that bristles are the structures from which insect wings eventually evolved.
What advantage could floating in the air give to the prehistoric insects? Apparently, the same advantage it gives them today - it allows them to quickly run away from crazy people on the tops of the trees, and land safely on another tree or on the ground. 390 million years ago, although there were no insects-eating birds and mammals, there were spiders, and later also carnivorous insects. The researchers decided to test the fertility of the tail bristles - and how much the bristles contribute to it - as a way to understand the importance of fertility in the early insects.
The researchers took wagtails and dropped them from branches 15 meters high in the forests of Panama. At first they fell in free fall, but very quickly straightened out and their fall became a gradual and deliberate descent, which led to the nearest tree trunk. The success rate of the landing was about 90%.
In the second step, the researchers removed some of the insects' bristles, or tentacles. It turned out that the only thing that significantly damaged their ability to nurse was the removal of the central bristles in the "tail", which as mentioned come out of the chest - the same area from which the wings come out in modern insects. Many of the bristleless insects fell directly to the forest floor, unable to orient themselves. If so, at least one of the functions of the tails of the tails is indeed to help in climbing from the tops of the trees.
What does it actually mean? This is no proof that the bristles of ancient insects are indeed the structures from which the wings developed, directly - only fossils from the missing period will be able to settle the matter definitively, and the controversy still continues. The research came to show how things could have happened - to propose a way in which the wings of insects could have developed without the need for a stage of life in water, and above all, to refute the claim that "there is no point in half a wing". The bristles of the tail beaks are not even a quarter of a wing, but they give them an advantage in flight - and any change that makes these bristles more like a wing, even slightly, will give them an additional advantage.
The article was published in the March issue of the magazine Biology letters.
You can read more about the research in the evolution blog of Science magazine
31 תגובות
to jimmy The Book of Zohar was written hundreds of years ago. Your comments are not scientific and do not deserve to appear here.
So, either respond objectively or find another forum for your nonsense.
Jimmy,
Are you ready to bring the exact quote of the Holy Zohar regarding the spheroids of the world?
If you don't, you'll surely forgive us if we treat your story with suspicion.
I am asking to be fired from "Gimi". He is a creationist troll who floods the site, every article he can, with nonsense. Its whole purpose is not to learn or teach but to brainwash the readers. And if he does not succeed in this, then destroy the enjoyment of the site by flooding it with stupid comments in all the articles.
To all the respected souls and writers, the answer to this topic as well as almost all the answers to all the topics related to us and surrounding us, the known and the unknown, are found in the heritage of Israel and the Torah of Israel just sit down and learn for all who are interested in the answers.
For example: In the Holy Bible it was already said thousands of years ago that the world is round like a flattened ball and that on the lower side there are people who are different from us, some in the color of their skin, some in their stature, the appearance of their faces, etc. And even though they are on the lower side, they step on the earth like us and feel like us.
This is at a time when the whole world except the people of Israel believed that the world is flat and everyone who sails to the end of the sea falls from it. It is also said that every creature (as it is called) was created in its image and form for the purpose it has to do in our wonderful planned and complex world.
To all the respected souls and writers, the answer to this topic as well as almost all the answers to all the topics related to us and surrounding us, the known and the unknown, are found in the heritage of Israel and the Torah of Israel just sit down and learn for all who are interested in the answers.
For example: In the Holy Bible it was already said thousands of years ago that the world is round like a flattened ball and that on the lower side there are people who are different from us, some in the color of their skin, some in their stature, the appearance of their faces, etc. And even though they are on the lower side, they step on the earth like us and feel like us.
This is at a time when the whole world except the people of Israel believed that the world is flat and everything that sails to the end of the sea falls from it. It is also said that every creature (as it is called) was created in its image and form for the purpose it has to do in our wonderful planned and complex world.
to anonymous:
Already when I wrote the answer I asked myself if someone would be so petty as to say what you said.
After all, I mentioned the fact that in the sea everyone moves in a three-dimensional way and I obviously included the fish in that.
So you want to call fins "wings"? Let it be! It doesn't change anything I said.
Since in the sea everyone moves three-dimensionally (and this is not because of the "wings" but because of the specific gravity of the water - living bodies have about the same specific gravity as the water and are much heavier than the air, so they are able to "float" in the water but not in the air) they cannot of wings to give such a significant advantage as the one they give on land.
On land - it is enough for you to be able to fly (even if at a very low speed) so that you can escape any terrestrial animal if you notice it quickly enough. Nothing will help you in the water: if a predator sees you and is bigger than you - it will likely eat you.
So it is true that there is an advantage in controlling the direction of movement and as you mentioned before (if you are the same anonymous) the zooplankton is endowed with this ability, at least to a certain extent.
But you know what? There is another way to answer the question:
It is possible - like a good Jew - to answer the question with a question.
Why didn't all land animals develop wings?
And you know what? There is another way: it can be argued that they did open "wings" but then they were already called "fish" - just as mice that opened wings are called "bats". As we know - the formation of bats did not cause the extinction of mice.
To Michael from response 7:
Fish actually developed wings. Anyone who is not planktonic and is able to resist the current and create motion of their own volition (i.e. "nektonic") has developed wings or the equivalent of wings. As in water so also in air, those who are heavy sink and those who are light will float. One who knows how to balance himself in the body of water (not enough to receive the title "sea flyer who controls his movement") and can control the direction of his movement according to his will - then he has succeeded in creating an equivalent of wings and moving in a medium.
Introducing phrases like Reynolds numbers may not be out of place here and does not help advance the discussion. To speak another meaning in bodies smaller than sixty microns and the whole story just gets more and more complicated.
I am not strictly critical of this theory, I just suggest taking into account that there are perhaps a little too many examples in which it is possible to ask why wings or wing-like elements have not evolved for gliding purposes in parallel systems.
The question is whether you understood it Noam.
Unless you mean to confuse my response (I just noticed). In any case, you are just looking for mistakes where there are none and are not willing to admit it
someone,
Did I claim otherwise? Where did you see me say that a pterosaur was not a pterodactyl - indeed, it was not a dinosaur, but a lizard - but anyway she did mention them.
I don't understand why you insist she didn't mention them when she did.
"In recent years, more and more fossils have been uncovered that shed light on one of the most fascinating changes in evolution - the conquest of the air by a certain group of dinosaurs, who covered themselves with feathers and turned into birds over the years. But the feathered dinosaurs were not the pioneers of aviation - they were preceded by the pterosaur (or pterodactyl), a featherless flying lizard, and more than 100 million years before that, the air was already humming with the hum of the flying insects."
I don't understand where your argument is? What is the problem?
Maybe you are not clear and there is indeed a problem?
And she did not claim that the birds came in the product.
To Oren (6) the genius. What is known in "Hidan" as "Pterosaur"
Called elsewhere "pterodactyl" Pterodactyl.
The dinosaurs (despite their name, ie: "big lizards")
And certainly the raptors from which the birds came, do not belong to a tribe
the reptiles (from which came the "pterosaurs") but to the warm-blooded ones.
The pterodactyl or "pterosaur" was indeed a type of flying lizard
- and not a dinosaur.
I would like to say that a blackbird nevertheless forgot an important type of flying.
Hugin:
Once an insect - always an insect.
Animals never change groups.
Just like football fans
Do we always know what is at that stage raw (raw:)
Hugin,
I don't know... which group do you belong to in the current Hugin cocoon stage? 🙂
(sorry, couldn't resist the snarky comment)
To your question - what do you mean by a group? Insects obviously, it does not change with the stages of its incarnation. Do you want to know what kind of insect? What family of insects?
In addition to all your expansion, but to which group does he belong in his pupal stage?
The experiment reminds me of the conclusion of a researcher who tested flea jumps: he removed a flea leg by leg (sorry with the members of the relevant associations), and ordered him to jump.
His conclusion was that after tearing off five legs the flea loses its hearing.
Michael,
I wonder about you, the butterfly has a far-reaching meaning among the New Agers and the fair:
"Once Chuang-tzu dreamed that he was a butterfly flying with flapping wings, happy with himself and doing what his heart desired. He didn't know he was Chuang-tse. Suddenly he awoke from his sleep and found himself the unmistakable Chuang-tse. Again he didn't know if he was a butterfly in Chuang-tse's dream, or Chuang-tse in a butterfly's dream"
did you understand that
Hugin:
I don't know if you asked seriously because the butterfly is clearly an insect.
In any case - there are butterflies in the Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team as well.
Just funny:
The parable of a cosmological wormhole is actually a parable about a parable because this phrase is nothing but a parable about the shortcut that continental wormholes create in the two-dimensional canvas of the earth's surface.
To which group does the butterfly belong?
The title is misleading - there are several existing explanations for the development of wings and flight in insects. All of them are a bit more serious than the article in question:
1. Gradual development as a result of the development of movement on water: http://www.bio.psu.edu/People/Faculty/Marden/project2.html
2. In an article from 1973 (!!) the evolution of wings is described as a result of the development of protuberons that were used for temperature regulation: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v246/n5429/abs/246127a0.html
3. Another theory (mentioned) speaks of gills as precursors to wings.
The gill theory, although it is quite accepted, is flawed because of the current respiratory mechanism in insects. The transition from blood to a respiratory system as it is today is unclear and not well explained. When I studied biology, there was talk of temperature regulating organelles that evolved into wings (see Stephen J. Gold on the subject). In fact, wings are used by insects to regulate temperature even today.
Oops 🙂
Apparently my memory from the "momentum, mass and heat flow" course is no longer what it was 🙂
This is what happens when the studied material is no longer used... both in studies and work, I don't deal with this field anymore. Not that this is an excuse for me writing nonsense. I have to take responsibility for what I write and check it. If not for me, then so as not to mislead the readers.
Thanks for the correction Michael!
to the anonymous user.
I actually think that your question is correct and that the answer to it is "for the same reason that fish did not open wings to fly in water".
The reason for all this is that in the water everything moves in three dimensions and there is no need for wings for that, while on land the wings give a tremendous advantage of an additional dimension of movement.
Daya also has the advantage of having a certain control over the direction that allows shortcuts - something with the same idea of a "wormhole" in cosmology. It evolved to gain this advantage and not just to soften the fall.
Oren: The anonymous user wrote "increase the Reynolds number" and not "decrease".
someone,
They wrote at least three times. And she did mention the flying dinosaurs among them the Prosaurus.
If anything, aviation has been invented in nature at least four times. Yonat ashhar
Forget the lizards - from them also came the greatest flying creature of all - the pterosaur.
Thanks for the interesting article, and the casting experiment is really impressive (assuming it was measured quantitatively and not wishful thinking...). As for the hypothesis of the advantage in survival, it seems to me that the explanation is not exhausted - a relatively small insect should not be seriously damaged by a fall, and a fall from a height is not a bad slip in itself. But it is possible that the viability of a neighboring tree is a significant survival advantage when the surface is deadly, for example water with agile hunters for insects that fall into them.
As for the anonymous user - I am not a biologist but your question is not relevant to the difficulties and assumptions in the article. Maybe things have evolved in zooplankton and maybe not - this does not say anything about development in another species/another environment/other coincidences. Are you an evolution troll?
I personally think points are yuck 🙂
anonymous user,
The article supports your opinion that the origin of winged insects is not necessarily from insects that live in an aquatic environment (which was the second theory proposed). He does not rule out the possibility, only shows that the development of winged insects is possible without a step of returning to water.
I don't know if the bristles of the aquatic insects were indeed intended to reduce the Reynolds number by giving a geometric shape that would buy a lower drag, but not every mutation that occurred in one creature will occur in another. For the same reason you may ask why we don't have a sense of hearing and smell like a dog?
Why don't all birds have sharp eyesight like an eagle? Natural selection is partly a random process of trial and error and only reinforces the fact that there is no supreme design. Otherwise there would be only one creature in the world with a set of qualities that would make it perfect.
How can you even study insects?
Ugh
The bristles exist in aquatic insects called zooplankton and their purpose is to increase the Reynolds number which decreases their rate of sedimentation and enables escape from predators or directed movement within the medium. Why didn't many of the zooplankton creatures develop such water wings that would allow them to move non-planktonically against the currents?
The article is interesting but the title is a bit misleading.
"How did the insects get their wings? No one has a clue" that's how it should have been written in the original.