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Home » Guide » Arthropods (Arthropoda) » Glossary » W » wing (insect)

wing (insect)

Representative Images

Insect wing diagram--regions Wing venation of a fly, Anisopus Eastern Pondhawk pterostigma - Erythemis simplicicollis - male

Classification

Kingdom Animalia (Animals)
Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)
No Taxon (Glossary)
No Taxon (W)
No Taxon wing (insect)

Identification

wing (wings) noun - membranaceous, reticulated (having numerous lines, like a net) instruments of flight, attached laterally to the thorax. Among invertebrates, wings are a characteristic feature of the Pterygota (winged insects), though some groups have lost them secondarily. Most members of "Pterygota" have two pairs of wings for a total of four:
forewings--attached to the mesothorax
hindwings (reduced or lacking in some groups)--attached to the metathorax
Some orders have distinctive modifications to the wings:
Coleoptera (beetles)--forewings are hardened, called elytra
Orthoptera (grasshoppers and allies), Dermaptera (Earwigs)--forewings called tegmina
Diptera (flies)--hindwings are reduced to knobs, called halteres

See Also

wing (Pterygota)
wing venation
apterous
brachypterous
micropterous
macropterous
pterostigma

Internet References

Jardine's Dictionary of Entomology
Wikipedia: Glossary of Lepidopteran terms (see Wings), Insect wing, Comstock-Needham system
NCSU General Entomology--ENT 425--Wings
Manual of Nearctic Diptera (various authors)--available as PDF's from the Entomological Society of Canada, page 30
Contributed by Cotinis on 27 May, 2007 - 11:05am
Additional contributions by Beatriz Moisset, Chuck Entz
Last updated 17 August, 2024 - 4:09pm

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