When it comes to speed, the animal kingdom boasts plenty of record-breakers—but some of the most remarkable flyers belong to the tiniest of animals. While insects appear fragile, many can perform ...
About 350 million years ago, our planet witnessed the evolution of the first flying creatures. They are still around, and some of them continue to annoy us with their buzzing. While scientists have ...
It sounds like a just-so story—“How the Insect Got its Wings”—but it’s really a mystery that has puzzled biologists for over a century. Intriguing and competing theories of insect wing evolution have ...
As we look ahead to the new year, your support makes all the difference. Make a donation today to help us continue bringing science to life for millions of readers.
Many insects are powerful, agile flyers. One reason is that most have four wings, which gives them fine control over their direction of flight and their orientation through pitch, roll, and yaw ...
The hinge enables insects to control their wing movements, but how it works is hard to study. Multidisciplinary research, using imaging and machine-learning methods, now sheds light on the mechanism ...