Aptery is the anatomical condition of an animal completely lacking any kind of wings. An animal with this condition is said to be apterous. Most animal species belong to and are phylogenetic descendants of apterous taxa. These groups are said to be primarily apterous. Insects that are primarily apterous belong to the subclass Apterygota. Apterous is an adjective that means that the insect or organism is wingless and usually refers to a particular form of an insect that may have wings, or a wingless species in a group that typically has wings, e.g. many

Orthoptera Orthoptera () is an order of insects that comprises the grasshoppers, locusts, and crickets, including closely related insects, such as the bush crickets or katydids and wētā. The order is subdivided into two suborders: Caelifera – grassho ...

(grasshoppers and allies) and

Hymenoptera Hymenoptera is a large order (biology), order of insects, comprising the sawfly, sawflies, wasps, bees, and ants. Over 150,000 living species of Hymenoptera have been described, in addition to over 2,000 extinct ones. Many of the species are Par ...

(wasps). In some groups, one sex may be apterous while the other is winged, e.g. Mutillidae (velvet ants). In other cases a particular form of an insect (but not all individuals) will be apterous, e.g. some Tetrigidae (pygmy grasshoppers). Wingless animals which belong to or are phylogenetic descendants of winged taxa are said to be secondarily apterous. 5% of extant Pterygota are believed to be secondarily apterous, including entire orders, such as fleas and Notoptera.

References

Cotinis. (2007). apterous, apterygote, apterygota. Bugguide.net. Retrieved 17 August 2021, from https://bugguide.net/node/view/110547. Comparative anatomy {{Animal-anatomy-stub

See also

References