6:06 "The insects closest relatives are not the arthropods" Insects _are_ arthropods, I'm pretty sure you meant to say "The insects closest relatives are not the _arachnids."_ or something like that.
One of my favorite episodes so far. Arthropods, especially Insects deserve more attention regarding their evolution as well. Most paleo stuff on YT only focuses on (large) vertebrates only.
Vertebrate supremacy! Jokes apart, humans are chauvinistic creatures by nature. We're way more likely to favor and be interested in those who share traits with us - be it as a person, a group, a culture or a species. Too many differences create alien hard to climb walls. It estranges us from the subject, even as it fascinates the observer.
I had no idea that insects are much more closely related to lobsters, crabs and shrimps than to spiders and scorpions. That is very fascinating. Certainly makes me look at them in a new way.
I didn't either, but it makes sense when one considers that the crab body has evolved independently at least five times, so it's not a big stretch of the imagination to speculate that these bodies could have used that framework to evolve further into these highly adapted "leg-wings" given the immense time frame involved.
That's why it's kinda weird that so many cultures hold crustaceans as a delicacy and insects as disgusting pests. They're basically the same, the only major difference is the relatively few kinds of insects which carry human illnesses.
Fun fact: People with a shellfish allergy often are also allergic to insects But anyways Insects aren’t just closely related to crustaceans, they are themselves crustaceans (at least, in the same way that you could consider us lobe finned fish). Insects belong to the clade Pancrustacea, a group that [wikipedia] ‘comprises all crustaceans, including insects’
There has been a lot of very interesting research into metamorphosis. Including producing hybrids from distantly related marine organisms with complete metamorphosis. It seems that the subject is largely ignored when portraying Evolution. (Ref: the book Metamorphosis by Frank Ryan and research from Sheffield University.)
Metamorphosis is just a shortcut in the molting process. Early insects would molt their juvenile forms and change shape subtly each time but have striking differences at both ends. Metamorphosis just fused the middle parts to one cocoon form that essentially became a second egg. Humans go through metamorphosis from aquatic to land based while in an egg. Most animals use the egg to develop. Part of the puzzle is silk but it probably has something to do with eggs and nests.
@@jeremymullens7167 There is the possibility that insects which undergo metamorphosis do have 2 genomes. (Ref a New Scientist Article). But yes, it is the same genes which are involved in triggering or suppressing moulting (Ecdysis) in Arthropods, nematodes etc including incomplete metamorphosis in insects.. Also the same genes involved in embryonic development in Chordates.
Dragon flies are friggin perfect. Imagine being able to fly easily in any direction. Up down left right. and having such good vision you can precisely catch flies in midair easily
@@RedSquirrelHunter jumping spiders are so cool! In summer when I'm in my backyard I can often find them and they're so tiny and SO awesome. What a very cool way to live.
You forgot that dragonflies can actually fly backwards quite easily. You can see them fly by something that catches their eye, hover and then back up to study it more closely. They don't do this a lot and not for anything but short distances but they can do it which is crazy. Hummingbirds can do this too and I am sure there are others I don't know about but I'm sure it is a very rare trait.
@@ZentaBon the diffrence is jumpers still have to "move" theyr eyes /body to see around them Dragonflys can literally look 360 ° without turning theyr head XD
The tree of life is endlessly fascinating. I've always been struck by the sheer diversity among insects, making it hard to figure out what are the more basal characteristics, giving the impression that we are seeing creatures from completely unrelated groups.
I think part of that is their low extinction rate. Vertebrates always get hit hard by extinction events but insects just seem to stick around and get more and more specialized.
No matter how much I learn about biology and science, it never ceases to amaze me that Nature has this unbelievable ability to adapt to it's surroundings.. Like, That's utterly amazing.
"An aquatic larval stage is ancestral to all flying insects" is an important clue. Aquatic insects fly because this allows them to escape drying streams and ponds and lay their eggs in new ones, colonizing new areas.
Well that's very possible that the insects NEED to escape dryings streams and ponds, it doesn't mean they can order a pair of wings to do so on Amazon even if they lived in the amazonian jungle.
Excellent video. I like that you covered an issue that is still unsettled, and presented multiple opposing theories. All too often, content creators have made up their mind on what explanation should be correct.
This has to be the best channel for relaxed education out there. The voice, music, visuals, and topics all blend so beautifully that it's almost unreal.
Not sure how much info there is on slime mold evolution since they wouldn't really fossilize but that would be a cool topic to go in depth on. Crazy protists.
Another thing that makes understanding the development of insect flight difficult is that no insect gliders survive today, and there isn’t fossil evidence for any. Because almost all insects evolved from flying ancestors, any that end up back in the air would probably just reactivate their wing genes, so it’s not like with other lineages where there are plenty of gliding fossils and living gliding creatures. Bats and pterosaurs also don’t have a well fossilized transition animal but it’s pretty easy to see how their flight might have evolved by looking at other flying tetrapods such as flying squirrels, which use a similar arrangement where one membrane connects all their limbs. Even many vertebrate lineages that have never resulted in powered flight have some gliding representatives, like snakes, lizards, frogs and fish. The only two gliding invertebrates that I know of are flying squid (in which the wings are modified fins on their mantle) and spiders that use special gossamer silk to catch the wind and balloon up into the sky. Neither of which is really helpful. Insects don’t have a mantle and the wings aren’t silk, not to mention squids aren’t even in the same phylum. If insects really did evolve their wings as a novel structure, then the glider that is closest to that is some of the lizards, which have skin flaps that extend from their sides (really hope some day they evolve powered flight because they would basically be dragons).
That's Yi Qi right? I may be wrong but I believe it is still debated whether they ever reached the point of true flight or if they were still only gliders because we still haven't figured out how strong and thick their wings are
have you looked at that thing haha? doesnt seem like it could fly at all. But it is true that within the group avialae active flight probably evolved multiple times, check out the paper by pei et al. 2020
@@RedSquirrelHunter Well, its debatable if that could be called a "flight" since at least as of now they aren't fully aerial, but I never thought of gliding fish. It would be cool to know the origins of them.
@@RedSquirrelHunterGliding doesn’t count. There are many types of gliding mammals today but only bats are true flyers. Gliding is probably a prerequisite to flying though.
Can we just take a moment to appreciate the excellent music choices Moth makes? From Dreamer to Ascension to the theme he uses in his recent videos, it feels like he takes us on a journey into the past every time.
Yes, most excellent video production. Very pleasant and informative. Some channels are interesting but grate on your nerves. Few manage to strike such a great balance. Journey through the Microcosmos and GK Natural History are the only two similar natural history channels that come to mindthat come to mind.
Love learning from this channel. Far more in depth information than youd typically find in television documentary which tend to skim over just the very basic information.
Thank you! could you make a video on how insects evolved complete metamorphosis/larval stages? how did a group of crustaceans unlock the ability to have their babies shaped like worms?
This was fascinating! I really appreciate the way your presentations have a natural progression that always seems to cover the most important aspects of each topic into a logical conclusion. Thank you. (And to @ExoRepublic, I agree with you that the background music is always excellent!)
Amazing topic and even better video about it, as usual! I am really happy to see, that you reach more and more people, interested in learning about the amazing history of species evolvement. For my part, I am really curious about ancient ecosystems, e.g. how did some of the species lineages in your videos behaved systematically at a certain time and environment. Maybe this is also interesting for you and some more people in your audience. Of course you already give insights in exactly this topic, but maybe you could also make special videos about fascinating ecosystems, if there is already enough knowledge about them and they are useful to give further insights into the further evolving of its species and the system as a whole. Keep it up!
I read an article about this a while ago but going at it from the DNA that said it was like a mammal evolving wings from the scapula which is a cool thought.
one of the best channels on YT. 100% quality content every time. maybe the early land insects first developed a type of sail which they used for example to harvest pollen. then as it naturally caused these insects to take off by the wind, those who learned to control the sail survived better and that caused the evolution of wing. how about evolution of worms?
Pollen didn't exist at that time, in fact pollen is really weird: its actually not plant sperm but like a sort or separate thing that then releases sperm or something like that i don't quite know the details.
@@astick5249 edit: according to wikipedia earliest fossil records of pollen date to devonian period between some 400 million to 350 million years ago, the same period in which insects developed flight.
I always wondered how it was that insects came to have such strange ability to change their form in stages through out their life.... It must be a development through millions of years of having to molt an exo skeleton.
Seems to me there could be a 3rd viable reason for wing development: Breeding/Show Many animals have developed special ways to display for mates. In theory the origin of the wing could be as small protrusions that could move a bit and were probably brightly colored. These would be used to warn off enemies and attract mates. Being as many insects would have traveled to the top of the canopy in the forests the ones that had larger "displays" could have had a better chance to glide or slow their fall. This could have spurred these "displays" to grow in size. Considering how even the earliest evidence of wings show them as colorful it would make sense if they were used for attracting mates.
Considering millipedes and centipedes all gained a boatload of limbs, albeit copy pasted legs, as they evolved, how strange would it be for an early flying ancestor to have evolved a whole new kind of limb that just happened to be an extra flat part of their exoskeleton that eventually was advantageous to gain better muscle control over?
Interestingly, we might be in the middle of the fifth appearance of flight, since while flying fish are not true fliers yet, they ARE still capable of gliding for a good distance, and might be able to push it further in the future.
I always found it interesting that, like you said, the ability of flight has evolved completely independently 4 separate times. However, it’s also interesting that those 4 all have completely different ways of flying. The way an insect flies is completely different than how a bird flies, they use different body parts & evolved in different ways. Same guys for bats & pterosaurs. I wonder what a flying fish or amphibian would look like, & how it would fly? I mean true flight, not like the current flying fish.
No offense to PBS eons but it’s been a while since I have been thinking that your videos are better. Clearer and better paced explanations. And that on top of video quality (visuals, editing, sound, narration, etc.) that is on par with professionally made products. 👍👍👍
i wonder how the Alucita hexadactyla (twenty-plume moth) fits into all of this. Notable with this particular moth is that the wings are not "flat sheets" of material but rather "fingers with bristles" more comparable to actual gills than anything.
Misspoken @6:10: the insects’ closest relatives are not the -arthropods- arachnids, … they are … crustaceans (Insects , arachnids, and crustaceans are all arthropods)
I just learned that crickets have wings but can't fly. I think they are a very good example of how wings evolve. They use the same area where their wings are to make noise. The wings might help release pheromones or their scent into the air. So this is Amazing!! The prof is in a live insect, not a fossil! How come no one has seen this fact!🥳🎉🔥💢💥YAY!😄!
Flight probably evolved from climbing insects which regularly fell or jumped from high places. Selection probably favored those which could glide further as they fell, which resulted in the formation of proto-wings
A thought occurs to me about the flying fish that sometimes fly right into the boat. Maybe flight evolved directly from water dwelling bugs without the intermediate step on land.
prob in birds flight evovled prob also not to actually fly but to climb trees /rocks more eficently and when running + glapping your wings you get a bit more speed
I feel like if we give it time we might see a fifth happen with Flying Squirrels. While right now all they do is glide, they already have some of the building blocks necessary to take their gliding ability to the next step. It wouldn't surprise me if, within the next 10,000-100,000+ years, we might start seeing adaptations that allow for powered flight among that family of rodents.
@@thunderred5263 that would require incentive for those aninals to take those adaptations, which would require specialisations that could damage their fitness in other regards such as climbing, feeding or walking. Its never the goal of gliding animals to eventually fly, and there are already a lot of animals which are perfectly adapted to flying that would compete heavily with them.
At some point in childhood thought that wings on insects where a set of stem lungs which became external into a set of limb like structures that first aided in gliding from tree to tree and then powered flight and that it influenced in their oxygen absorption and consequential body size to move in a thicker more oxygenated aether
Can I ask the name of the background music you use? I watched one of these videos while high and the music completely destroyed my consciousness. Thanks!
I have found some nice Carboniferous insect and shrimp-like fossils on my property in West Virginia, although the vast majority of fossils are plants. One of the insects appears to have had wings - it’s about the size of a modern mosquito, or fruit fly.
Fascinating story.. one species that is just starting out experimenting with flight is the flying fish .. it’s amazing how life seems to be a force of engineering intelligence determined to give absolutely everything a go from every angle .. I even have a theory that life planet hops throughout the galaxy as microscopic fungal spores safely tucked away inside a beetles gut that has been thrown into space from a summer thunderstorm and carried on the solar winds to a new planet to begin the life journey.. it would seem only natural that the life engineers would have conquered just about any obstacles and adapted to any possible life sustaining environment..
Birds evolved flight at least twice, though, 1 to 3 times forming wings with flight feathers, and 1 time with skin flaps. Some reconstructions have Avialae, flying Dromeosaurs, and flying Troodontids evolve flight separately, as well as flying Scansiopterygids. Others have a common ancestor of Avialae, Dromeosaurs, and Troodontids evolve flight, then parts of each lineage evolve flightlessness, and flying Scansioriopterygids evolve or re-evolve flight later on.
I came to a similar conclusion. I assume what happened is by the time the insects lost their legs there was some kind of remnant, similar to how horses have that little nub on their legs that dont seem to do anything. My best guess is what ever this remnant was interacted with the top of the insect in such a way that was conducive for wings in certain insects. Anyways great video!!!
I think it’s the gills theory, mainly because the silverfish only has 6 legs and no wings. All insects have 6 legs as a larva without wings and adult with wings. With no need for gills on land it makes sense that they where transformed into beneficial wings.
Keep an eye on possible descent of Opabina, & on microscopic gnats whose wings R more like molecule rakes. And what looks quite a bit like Mayfly larvae in the Precambrian.
Would it be possible to isolate the genes for the expression of wing development and see if they "over write" junk limb/ carapace expression or if it's uniquely expressed through separate sequences?
6:06
"The insects closest relatives are not the arthropods"
Insects _are_ arthropods, I'm pretty sure you meant to say "The insects closest relatives are not the _arachnids."_ or something like that.
I think you're right since he was showing a spider
@@benisoreilly869 most likely
agreed
yea i was a bit confused by that
yeah that confused me too
One of my favorite episodes so far. Arthropods, especially Insects deserve more attention regarding their evolution as well. Most paleo stuff on YT only focuses on (large) vertebrates only.
Vertebrate supremacy!
Jokes apart, humans are chauvinistic creatures by nature. We're way more likely to favor and be interested in those who share traits with us - be it as a person, a group, a culture or a species.
Too many differences create alien hard to climb walls. It estranges us from the subject, even as it fascinates the observer.
They are so facinating and mysterious since they're hard to fossilized.
I think it’s because a lot of people have a natural aversion to bugs
I had no idea that insects are much more closely related to lobsters, crabs and shrimps than to spiders and scorpions. That is very fascinating. Certainly makes me look at them in a new way.
I didn't either, but it makes sense when one considers that the crab body has evolved independently at least five times, so it's not a big stretch of the imagination to speculate that these bodies could have used that framework to evolve further into these highly adapted "leg-wings" given the immense time frame involved.
That's why it's kinda weird that so many cultures hold crustaceans as a delicacy and insects as disgusting pests. They're basically the same, the only major difference is the relatively few kinds of insects which carry human illnesses.
its obvious, shrimp basically are just sea cockroach
@@kotarojujo2737
I've always known lobster was just sea bugs
Fun fact: People with a shellfish allergy often are also allergic to insects
But anyways Insects aren’t just closely related to crustaceans, they are themselves crustaceans (at least, in the same way that you could consider us lobe finned fish). Insects belong to the clade Pancrustacea, a group that [wikipedia] ‘comprises all crustaceans, including insects’
You should make a video on how organisms evolved to undergo a metamorphosis from a juvenile form to an adult form.
I like this idea
There has been a lot of very interesting research into metamorphosis. Including producing hybrids from distantly related marine organisms with complete metamorphosis. It seems that the subject is largely ignored when portraying Evolution. (Ref: the book Metamorphosis by Frank Ryan and research from Sheffield University.)
metamorphosis always boggles me
Metamorphosis is just a shortcut in the molting process. Early insects would molt their juvenile forms and change shape subtly each time but have striking differences at both ends.
Metamorphosis just fused the middle parts to one cocoon form that essentially became a second egg.
Humans go through metamorphosis from aquatic to land based while in an egg. Most animals use the egg to develop.
Part of the puzzle is silk but it probably has something to do with eggs and nests.
@@jeremymullens7167 There is the possibility that insects which undergo metamorphosis do have 2 genomes. (Ref a New Scientist Article). But yes, it is the same genes which are involved in triggering or suppressing moulting (Ecdysis) in Arthropods, nematodes etc including incomplete metamorphosis in insects.. Also the same genes involved in embryonic development in Chordates.
Dragon flies are friggin perfect. Imagine being able to fly easily in any direction. Up down left right.
and having such good vision you can precisely catch flies in midair easily
Has one of the highest success rates of any predator to ever live.
Jumping spiders have better vision, but the dragon fly has insane reaction time
@@RedSquirrelHunter jumping spiders are so cool! In summer when I'm in my backyard I can often find them and they're so tiny and SO awesome. What a very cool way to live.
You forgot that dragonflies can actually fly backwards quite easily. You can see them fly by something that catches their eye, hover and then back up to study it more closely. They don't do this a lot and not for anything but short distances but they can do it which is crazy. Hummingbirds can do this too and I am sure there are others I don't know about but I'm sure it is a very rare trait.
@@ZentaBon the diffrence is jumpers still have to "move" theyr eyes /body to see around them
Dragonflys can literally look 360 ° without turning theyr head XD
The tree of life is endlessly fascinating. I've always been struck by the sheer diversity among insects, making it hard to figure out what are the more basal characteristics, giving the impression that we are seeing creatures from completely unrelated groups.
I think part of that is their low extinction rate. Vertebrates always get hit hard by extinction events but insects just seem to stick around and get more and more specialized.
No matter how much I learn about biology and science, it never ceases to amaze me that Nature has this unbelievable ability to adapt to it's surroundings.. Like, That's utterly amazing.
Jesus is amazing !
@@doburu4835Jesus couldn't have even known about biological evolution because he was born and died thousands of years before modern science.
@@TheVideoIsLongEnoughhe is the creator of course he would know.
@@doburu4835 I forget people still believe in bronze age mythology. Jesus was a man. God is a myth. Grow up
"An aquatic larval stage is ancestral to all flying insects" is an important clue. Aquatic insects fly because this allows them to escape drying streams and ponds and lay their eggs in new ones, colonizing new areas.
True
Well that's very possible that the insects NEED to escape dryings streams and ponds, it doesn't mean they can order a pair of wings to do so on Amazon even if they lived in the amazonian jungle.
There are primarily flightless insects who are fully terrestrial on all stages.
Finally, someone has covered this overlooked topic, thank you! Keep up the incredible content!
PBS Eon has a video up on this for like 2 years
Just an fyi
i just finished making food when this dropped. i could not be happier
I'm making pesto and I couldn't be more thrilled learning about sky buggies
That’s a vibe
Excellent video. I like that you covered an issue that is still unsettled, and presented multiple opposing theories. All too often, content creators have made up their mind on what explanation should be correct.
This has to be the best channel for relaxed education out there. The voice, music, visuals, and topics all blend so beautifully that it's almost unreal.
Funny to think about that insects have likely driven the evolution of flight in other animals. They just all want to be like insects
Not sure how much info there is on slime mold evolution since they wouldn't really fossilize but that would be a cool topic to go in depth on. Crazy protists.
Honey wake up, a new Moth Light Media video just dropped
Another thing that makes understanding the development of insect flight difficult is that no insect gliders survive today, and there isn’t fossil evidence for any. Because almost all insects evolved from flying ancestors, any that end up back in the air would probably just reactivate their wing genes, so it’s not like with other lineages where there are plenty of gliding fossils and living gliding creatures. Bats and pterosaurs also don’t have a well fossilized transition animal but it’s pretty easy to see how their flight might have evolved by looking at other flying tetrapods such as flying squirrels, which use a similar arrangement where one membrane connects all their limbs. Even many vertebrate lineages that have never resulted in powered flight have some gliding representatives, like snakes, lizards, frogs and fish. The only two gliding invertebrates that I know of are flying squid (in which the wings are modified fins on their mantle) and spiders that use special gossamer silk to catch the wind and balloon up into the sky. Neither of which is really helpful. Insects don’t have a mantle and the wings aren’t silk, not to mention squids aren’t even in the same phylum. If insects really did evolve their wings as a novel structure, then the glider that is closest to that is some of the lizards, which have skin flaps that extend from their sides (really hope some day they evolve powered flight because they would basically be dragons).
I heard that flight evolved 5 times, another type of dinosaur apart from birds and pterosaurs also evolved flight using both membrane and feathers.
That's Yi Qi right? I may be wrong but I believe it is still debated whether they ever reached the point of true flight or if they were still only gliders because we still haven't figured out how strong and thick their wings are
have you looked at that thing haha? doesnt seem like it could fly at all. But it is true that within the group avialae active flight probably evolved multiple times, check out the paper by pei et al. 2020
Bats, birds, pterosaurs, insects, flying fish more of a glider
@@RedSquirrelHunter Well, its debatable if that could be called a "flight" since at least as of now they aren't fully aerial, but I never thought of gliding fish. It would be cool to know the origins of them.
@@RedSquirrelHunterGliding doesn’t count. There are many types of gliding mammals today but only bats are true flyers. Gliding is probably a prerequisite to flying though.
Kind of wild that the mayfly is basically the insect version of an amphibian!
And they're herbivore while dragonfly is carnivore version
Can we just take a moment to appreciate the excellent music choices Moth makes? From Dreamer to Ascension to the theme he uses in his recent videos, it feels like he takes us on a journey into the past every time.
I do think the volume of the music is a bit too low compared to the past. Nonetheless still great music choices!
I prefer the music he used in his early videos
I agree the music along with his voice makes it a very relaxing journey
I wonder what the music used in this video is
Yes, most excellent video production. Very pleasant and informative. Some channels are interesting but grate on your nerves. Few manage to strike such a great balance. Journey through the Microcosmos and GK Natural History are the only two similar natural history channels that come to mindthat come to mind.
Nah the old videos with Dreamer was much better
Love learning from this channel. Far more in depth information than youd typically find in television documentary which tend to skim over just the very basic information.
The beauty and wonder of our world never ceases to amaze.
I love these videos, they make me love and appreciate nature in entirely new ways.
Thank you! could you make a video on how insects evolved complete metamorphosis/larval stages? how did a group of crustaceans unlock the ability to have their babies shaped like worms?
Uploaded the video at the exact same time Trey the explainor uploaded one, this is going to be a fun half hour.
This channel never ceases to amaze. Thank you.
Top notch video as per usual! Thank you!
Thank you keep making content I love your channel and your voice !! 👏🏾
Love your content so much. The voice, the manner of the delivery, the music, everything.
This was fascinating! I really appreciate the way your presentations have a natural progression that always seems to cover the most important aspects of each topic into a logical conclusion. Thank you.
(And to @ExoRepublic, I agree with you that the background music is always excellent!)
6:05 insects are athropods, did you want to say arachnids?
probably
World class content as always. Perhaps another good video idea is the evolution of terrestiality in plants and insects.
Please do how insects transitioned to land. I know literally nothing about this
Amazing topic and even better video about it, as usual! I am really happy to see, that you reach more and more people, interested in learning about the amazing history of species evolvement.
For my part, I am really curious about ancient ecosystems, e.g. how did some of the species lineages in your videos behaved systematically at a certain time and environment. Maybe this is also interesting for you and some more people in your audience. Of course you already give insights in exactly this topic, but maybe you could also make special videos about fascinating ecosystems, if there is already enough knowledge about them and they are useful to give further insights into the further evolving of its species and the system as a whole.
Keep it up!
MOTH LIGHT MEDIA I LOVE YOU
I read an article about this a while ago but going at it from the DNA that said it was like a mammal evolving wings from the scapula which is a cool thought.
I’m meant to be learning for my GCSEs but this is better
This channel is a gold mine
I was under the impression that insect wings are derived from gill structures in larval forms.
Still. Patiently waiting for the next vid 🥹
Fantastic!
A topic I hadn't given much thought to; but considering it further, it really is a headscratcher
Excellent video as always.
I admire your refusal to make any Moth related Puns or Quips
Best TH-cam Chanel out there! Saludos from Chile, South América
one of the best channels on YT. 100% quality content every time. maybe the early land insects first developed a type of sail which they used for example to harvest pollen. then as it naturally caused these insects to take off by the wind, those who learned to control the sail survived better and that caused the evolution of wing.
how about evolution of worms?
Pollen didn't exist at that time, in fact pollen is really weird: its actually not plant sperm but like a sort or separate thing that then releases sperm or something like that i don't quite know the details.
@@astick5249 how do you know pollen didn't exist at the time?
Why would an insect want pollen
@@jamestang1227 go ask bumblebees.
@@astick5249 edit: according to wikipedia earliest fossil records of pollen date to devonian period between some 400 million to 350 million years ago, the same period in which insects developed flight.
I always wondered how it was that insects came to have such strange ability to change their form in stages through out their life.... It must be a development through millions of years of having to molt an exo skeleton.
Seems to me there could be a 3rd viable reason for wing development: Breeding/Show
Many animals have developed special ways to display for mates. In theory the origin of the wing could be as small protrusions that could move a bit and were probably brightly colored. These would be used to warn off enemies and attract mates. Being as many insects would have traveled to the top of the canopy in the forests the ones that had larger "displays" could have had a better chance to glide or slow their fall. This could have spurred these "displays" to grow in size.
Considering how even the earliest evidence of wings show them as colorful it would make sense if they were used for attracting mates.
Considering millipedes and centipedes all gained a boatload of limbs, albeit copy pasted legs, as they evolved, how strange would it be for an early flying ancestor to have evolved a whole new kind of limb that just happened to be an extra flat part of their exoskeleton that eventually was advantageous to gain better muscle control over?
Interestingly, we might be in the middle of the fifth appearance of flight, since while flying fish are not true fliers yet, they ARE still capable of gliding for a good distance, and might be able to push it further in the future.
They wouldn’t have the energy or the need for powered flight. Fish can’t stay out of water for that long.
I always found it interesting that, like you said, the ability of flight has evolved completely independently 4 separate times. However, it’s also interesting that those 4 all have completely different ways of flying. The way an insect flies is completely different than how a bird flies, they use different body parts & evolved in different ways. Same guys for bats & pterosaurs.
I wonder what a flying fish or amphibian would look like, & how it would fly? I mean true flight, not like the current flying fish.
Another great video! I would love it if you labeled the animals as they're shown so I can go on a deep dive :)
Will there be a video on polychaetes someday?
Thanks biologists and geneticists are detectives on a whole new level
I quite like silverfish, they're cute and rather pretty little insects with their silver colour. :)
I hope you know that you have the best channel
Thx, great content as always 💪🏼
No offense to PBS eons but it’s been a while since I have been thinking that your videos are better. Clearer and better paced explanations. And that on top of video quality (visuals, editing, sound, narration, etc.) that is on par with professionally made products. 👍👍👍
Interesting, so flight in insects only evolved once? All flying insects have a common flying ancestor?
Ants have not lost flight.
You make my favorite paleomedia
i wonder how the Alucita hexadactyla (twenty-plume moth) fits into all of this.
Notable with this particular moth is that the wings are not "flat sheets" of material but rather "fingers with bristles" more comparable to actual gills than anything.
Well done. You make very good videos. 🦋🐝🐞
Misspoken @6:10: the insects’ closest relatives are not the -arthropods- arachnids, … they are … crustaceans
(Insects , arachnids, and crustaceans are all arthropods)
A fascinating topic
Awesome video!
awesome topic, i had to write an evodevo essay about this once and came to the same conclusion as you ^^
I've been needing this I love you
I just learned that crickets have wings but can't fly. I think they are a very good example of how wings evolve. They use the same area where their wings are to make noise. The wings might help release pheromones or their scent into the air. So this is Amazing!! The prof is in a live insect, not a fossil! How come no one has seen this fact!🥳🎉🔥💢💥YAY!😄!
Flight probably evolved from climbing insects which regularly fell or jumped from high places. Selection probably favored those which could glide further as they fell, which resulted in the formation of proto-wings
Still waiting for Evolution of cockroaches or Leaf insects that would be interesting
A thought occurs to me about the flying fish that sometimes fly right into the boat. Maybe flight evolved directly from water dwelling bugs without the intermediate step on land.
prob in birds flight evovled prob also not to actually fly
but to climb trees /rocks more eficently
and when running + glapping your wings you get a bit more speed
Thanks for the content. I miss the music played before.
I feel like if we give it time we might see a fifth happen with Flying Squirrels. While right now all they do is glide, they already have some of the building blocks necessary to take their gliding ability to the next step. It wouldn't surprise me if, within the next 10,000-100,000+ years, we might start seeing adaptations that allow for powered flight among that family of rodents.
Or they will go extinct cuz of us
@@thunderred5263 that would require incentive for those aninals to take those adaptations, which would require specialisations that could damage their fitness in other regards such as climbing, feeding or walking. Its never the goal of gliding animals to eventually fly, and there are already a lot of animals which are perfectly adapted to flying that would compete heavily with them.
@@raymond8920 ok,understandable have a nice day
Forget that, I'd rather have flying frogs!
My favorite notification of all notifications.
i wonder if bugs making sound predates flight. i know some bugs use wings to make sound maybe they could be related
Insect flight may have evolved to help get away from predators?
Do you read my mind???
Just thought that I'd like to see your vidoe on insect evolution couple of days ago and you did the video - that's scary, man
Luv your vids, binging em all!
6:06 small mistake, all insects (hexapods), crustaceans, and miriapods are all arthropods
New fear unlocked: Flying slugs
Using jet propulsion
Mysteries of evolution
At some point in childhood thought that wings on insects where a set of stem lungs which became external into a set of limb like structures that first aided in gliding from tree to tree and then powered flight and that it influenced in their oxygen absorption and consequential body size to move in a thicker more oxygenated aether
Can I ask the name of the background music you use?
I watched one of these videos while high and the music completely destroyed my consciousness.
Thanks!
7:12 my face was right next to the screen😭
Thanks for new video!
I have found some nice Carboniferous insect and shrimp-like fossils on my property in West Virginia, although the vast majority of fossils are plants.
One of the insects appears to have had wings - it’s about the size of a modern mosquito, or fruit fly.
Can you do the chicken next??
Can you investigate sleep?
I read that we normally slept two times a day until 200 years ago.
Super Nice
You should make an episode on beetles. They are a fascinating and special group.
plz evolution of Ocean sunfish
Good one👏🏾👏🏾
banger video thank you moth man
Fascinating story.. one species that is just starting out experimenting with flight is the flying fish .. it’s amazing how life seems to be a force of engineering intelligence determined to give absolutely everything a go from every angle .. I even have a theory that life planet hops throughout the galaxy as microscopic fungal spores safely tucked away inside a beetles gut that has been thrown into space from a summer thunderstorm and carried on the solar winds to a new planet to begin the life journey.. it would seem only natural that the life engineers would have conquered just about any obstacles and adapted to any possible life sustaining environment..
Birds evolved flight at least twice, though, 1 to 3 times forming wings with flight feathers, and 1 time with skin flaps. Some reconstructions have Avialae, flying Dromeosaurs, and flying Troodontids evolve flight separately, as well as flying Scansiopterygids. Others have a common ancestor of Avialae, Dromeosaurs, and Troodontids evolve flight, then parts of each lineage evolve flightlessness, and flying Scansioriopterygids evolve or re-evolve flight later on.
I came to a similar conclusion. I assume what happened is by the time the insects lost their legs there was some kind of remnant, similar to how horses have that little nub on their legs that dont seem to do anything. My best guess is what ever this remnant was interacted with the top of the insect in such a way that was conducive for wings in certain insects. Anyways great video!!!
I think it’s the gills theory, mainly because the silverfish only has 6 legs and no wings. All insects have 6 legs as a larva without wings and adult with wings. With no need for gills on land it makes sense that they where transformed into beneficial wings.
@@RedSquirrelHunter I liked the gill theory too but didn't he say that the gills are lost after the larva stage?
Keep an eye on possible descent of Opabina, & on microscopic gnats whose wings R more like molecule rakes.
And what looks quite a bit like Mayfly larvae in the Precambrian.
I was hoping for a description of the different possible stages of development.
Always spot on
Would it be possible to isolate the genes for the expression of wing development and see if they "over write" junk limb/ carapace expression or if it's uniquely expressed through separate sequences?
Who can fly? Bats, birds, pterosaurs, people, insects and some fish can fly