Life learns to fly
Insects have the air to themselves for a hundred million years
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Flight has evolved independently four times among animals: insects, pterosaurs, birds and bats. Insects were first by some 150 million years. The origin of the wing is contested — it probably evolved from gill-like outgrowths or from lateral lobes on the dorsal plates. The high oxygen of the Carboniferous, up towards 35 per cent, permitted bodies that would otherwise have suffocated, since insects breathe through passive tube systems. Meganeura had a wingspan of around 70 centimetres. When oxygen fell again, they shrank.
For children
Insects invented flight long before any other animal. For a hundred million years they had the air to themselves — no birds, no bats, nothing that could chase them up there. Some dragonflies grew wings as wide as a seagull's.
Connects to
Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org