Pterygota

For other uses, see Pterygota (disambiguation).

Pterygota
Temporal range: Serpukhovian–Recent
Giant honey bee Apis dorsata (order Hymenoptera) on Tribulus terrestris
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
(unranked): Dicondylia
Subclass: Pterygota
Gegenbaur, 1878[1]
Subdivisions

The Pterygota (/ˌtɛrəˈɡoʊtə/ terrə-GOH-tə[2] Ancient Greek: πτερυγωτός, romanized: pterugōtós, lit. 'winged') are a subclass of insects that includes all winged insects and the orders that are secondarily wingless (that is, insect groups whose ancestors once had wings but that have lost them as a result of subsequent evolution).[3]

The pterygotan group comprises 99.9% of all insects.[4] The orders not included are the Archaeognatha (jumping bristletails) and the Zygentoma (silverfishes and firebrats), two primitively wingless insect orders. Also not included is Entognatha, which consist of three orders no longer considered to be insects: Protura, Collembola, and Diplura.

Unlike Archaeognatha and Zygentoma, the pterygotes do not have styli or vesicles on their abdomen (also absent in some zygentomans), and with the exception of the majority of mayflies, are also missing the median terminal filament which is present in the ancestrally wingless insects.[5][6][7]

The oldest known representatives of the group appeared during the mid-Carboniferous, around 328–324 million years ago, and the group subsequently underwent a rapid explosive diversification. Claims that they originated substantially earlier during the Silurian or Devonian based on molecular clock estimates are unlikely based on the fossil record, and are likely analytical artefacts.[8]

  1. ^ Gegenbaur, C (1878). Grundriss der vergleichenden Anatomie. Zweite verbesserte Auflage (in German). Vol. 2nd ed. Leipzig: W. Engelmann. p. 244.
  2. ^ "Pterygota". Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved 17 September 2024.
  3. ^ Vincent H. Resh; Ring T. Cardé (4 April 2003). Encyclopedia of Insects. Academic Press. p. 64. ISBN 978-0-08-054605-6.
  4. ^ "The Evolution and Genetics of Migration in Insects".
  5. ^ Weyda, František (25 June 1988). "Coxal Setal Organs in Archaeognatha and Zygentoma (Insecta)". In Hník, Pavel; Soukup, Tomáš; Vejsada, Richard; Zelená, Jiřina (eds.). Mechanoreceptors: Development, Structure, and Function. Springer US. pp. 365–367. doi:10.1007/978-1-4899-0812-4_70. ISBN 978-1-4899-0814-8 – via Springer Link.
  6. ^ Drummond, F. H. (25 December 1953). "THE EVERSIBLE VESICLES OF CAMPODEA (THYSANURA)". Proceedings of the Royal Entomological Society of London. Series A, General Entomology. 28 (10–12): 145–148. doi:10.1111/j.1365-3032.1953.tb00643.x – via CrossRef.
  7. ^ Gullan, P. J.; Cranston, P. S. (3 November 2014). The Insects: An Outline of Entomology. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-84615-5 – via Google Books.
  8. ^ Schachat, Sandra R; Goldstein, Paul Z; Desalle, Rob; Bobo, Dean M; Boyce, C Kevin; Payne, Jonathan L; Labandeira, Conrad C (2 February 2023). "Illusion of flight? Absence, evidence and the age of winged insects". Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. 138 (2): 143–168. doi:10.1093/biolinnean/blac137. ISSN 0024-4066.