Most insects can fly but insects on tiny islands are slowly losing their ability to fly. In fact, according to scientists, on the tiny islands that are located halfway between Antarctica and Australia, most tiny insects have lost their ability to fly.
Isn’t that strange? Why do you think this would happen?
Charles Darwin had a theory for why insects on small islands were losing their ability to fly.
Most of the islands where this flight loss is happening as an evolutionary feature (a change that happens naturally in a species, and is meant to help the species survive better), lie in the range of 40 – 50 degrees south, which is particularly windy.
Windy conditions on the islands made the insect flight very difficult and expended more energy. Thus, insects stop investing in flying and as part of evolution, the underlying machinery that supports wings and wing muscles eventually gets modified.
The other reason is that if the insects fly, they are more likely to be carried over the sea by the wind. This makes their survival difficult.
Scientists are now saying that Darwin was most probably right. No other theory explains the extraordinary loss of flight in insects in precisely one part of the world.
Question for you: Do you agree with Darwin?