Form and Function of Insect Wings: The Evolution of Biological Structures

"Insect flight," writes Dmitry Grodnitsky, "is the most diverse kind of animal aerial locomotion." In Form and Function of Insect Wings Grodnitsky offers a comprehensive overview of the functional morphology of insect wings from the viewpoint of general biology and uses these data to help further explain animal morphology.

Grodnitsky evaluates functional issues relating to insect diversification, particularly wing structure and kinematics. He discusses recent data on wing kinematics and structure from the point of view of modern insect flight aerodynamics and general evolutionary morphology. He is most concerned with the question of which features of an organism can be explained by natural selection of given functional variants and which cannot.

Chapter topics include general information on insect flight, vortex aerodynamics, the diversity and evolution of flapping flight, wing morphology, and general evolutionary considerations. Form and Function of Insect Wings will be of interest to evolutionary biologists worldwide, particularly those concerned with morphological questions, and entomologists, especially those interested in how insect wings work. The book also contains a novel insect taxonomy at supraordinal level (by Alexandr P. Rasnitsyn) and throws light on recent developments in contemporary Russian evolutionary theory.

"[Insect wings are] almost uniquely convenient objects for a survey of comparative morphology. The broad diversification of wing shapes and their constructions within insect class provide fruitful soil for analyses and reconstructions of historical trends... In insects, flight probably involves more diverse mechanisms than in any other animal taxon. Although disagreement remains on the way insects manage to stay aloft, certain regularities can clearly be described, thus explaining particular trends in insect evolution." -- from the Preface