Wings yes, wings no, wings yes…

2003/01/16 Elhuyar Zientzia

• Biologia

This seems to be what some insect sticks have done.

As for evolution, we generally think that living beings evolve towards the most appropriate model. And in that adaptation the organs are created or disappear depending on their usefulness or not. For example, ostriches have lost the ability to fly.

But, are those arrangements going back? Yes, it seems.

Michael F. Whiting's group has analyzed the DNA of 35 insect sticks within an evolutionary study published in the journal Nature. And one of the consequences has been that some species of insect sticks lost the ability to fly and, later, 50 million years later, recovered that capacity.