Knowra Evolution of insects Evolution of insects The evolutionary history of insects, from their origins among arthropods through major diversification and adaptations. It includes their relationships to other arthropods and the fossil evidence for their past.
Arthropod : An invertebrate animal with a segmented body, jointed appendages, and a chitinous exoskeleton. Insects are one branch of this larger animal lineage.
Insect wing : A paired, usually membranous outgrowth of the insect thorax used for flight or display. Wings opened aerial habitats and new routes to dispersal and escape.
Carboniferous rainforest collapse : A late Carboniferous environmental disruption that fragmented tropical coal forests and caused extinctions among their inhabitants. It altered habitats available to early insects and other terrestrial arthropods.
Crustacean : An arthropod lineage that includes crabs, shrimp, and related animals, many of which live in water. Comparisons with crustaceans illuminate insects' closest living evolutionary relatives.
Insect origins : The emergence of the insect lineage from earlier hexapod ancestors, inferred from fossils and evolutionary relationships. Its precise timing remains uncertain because early insects left few fossils.
Pancrustacea : The evolutionary group containing crustaceans and hexapods, including insects. Evidence places insects within this broader crustacean-related group.
Complete metamorphosis : A developmental pattern with distinct egg, larval, pupal, and adult stages. Separating juvenile and adult forms enabled different diets and habitats.
Permian–Triassic extinction event : The largest known mass extinction, around 252 million years ago, marking the transition from the Permian to the Triassic. This crisis reset ecosystems in which surviving insect lineages diversified.
Myriapod : An arthropod group that includes centipedes and millipedes, characterized by many trunk segments and legs. Myriapods were once proposed as insects' closest relatives but belong elsewhere in arthropod phylogeny.
Origin of insect wings : The evolutionary transition that produced the first insect wings from ancestral structures. Competing explanations differ over which ancestral body structures gave rise to wings.
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