My favorite insect wings are the lacewings. Lacewings have four wings that are transparent with large veins, so the wings look like lace. Lacewings are coordinated fliers but are also calm so that they can be easily observed on a leaf. I like to put them on my finger so I can look through their wings at the different reflections of light. Lacewings also have many other good qualities, like eating aphids.
The middle section of an insect is the thorax, and the thorax is made of three segments. Each segment has a pair of legs, giving insects their characteristic six legs. The second and third segments can each have a pair of wings, so only four wings. I don’t know why they don’t have wings on each segment to match their legs, maybe six wings is hard to coordinate.
Some insects have modified the first set of wings to be a hard shell to protect the hind set, the hard wing shell is called the elytra. June beetles have elytra which explains why they are so clumsy at flying since they only have one set of flying wings. The front set of wings can also be only partially hardened to become leathery and are then referred to as tagmata. Crickets have tagmata and rub their modified wings together to chirp. Other insects modified the back set of wings to become gyroscopic stalks for balancing, called halteres. Flies have halteres which can be observed in photos or even better, put a cranefly under a microscope. Halteres are more useful for graceful flight but are not useful for protection, so there is a tradeoff.
The different insect orders have evolved wing modifications depending on their priorities. The aspects of pollinating various species of flower have different requirements. Milkweed flowers have heavy pollen sacks that require strong wing muscles to lift. Bumblebees vibrate their wing muscles to help the flower pollen loosen, this is called buzz pollination. Flowers growing in windy habitat need agile insects that have control enough to land on each flower. Bees that must push into tightly closed flowers like gentians must keep their wings folded out of the way, so they are not ripped off during the effort.
Insect wings can be very flexible, and some insects can even contort their wings to control their flight. When not in use, many insects fold their wings up on their back. Wings can be folded like a fan or layered on the back like a stack of papers. Surprisingly, they can even be folded like origami and carefully hidden under the elytra to be spring loaded to pop out once the elytra are lifted. Insect wings have nerves and fluids which help with folding and also flight. Dragonflies and butterflies do not have foldable wings. Interestingly, butterflies lost their ability to fold their wings through evolution while dragonflies have never had folding wings.
I wonder what types of wings I would choose if I could have them? I would want wings that folded up nicely out of the way so I wouldn’t be knocking stuff over all the time. I would also choose halteres over elytra since I don’t have much need for armor. My wings should also be beautiful like the butterfly’s with iridescent scales. Or maybe I want tagmata so I have an additional form of communication. It is fun to imagine.
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