As shown in the image above: The horned cicada exhibits an endless variety of forms, most of which are expressed through a peculiar structure called a helmet, a new homolog of wings that is no longer associated with flight.
A small insect called a horned cicada wears some very strange helmets. Now, the researchers have found that these insects have developed this helmet by reactivating and modifying their wing-making mechanisms.
Benjamin Prud'homme, a researcher at the Institute of Luminous Biology in Marseille, France, said: "We think this is an example of how evolution has worked at the morphological level by cycling a genetic factor to find a new location in the body to express it. It is the raw material of evolution, the shape of evolution. ”
The researchers hypothesized that horned cicadas that appeared on Earth about 40 million years ago used their headdresses as camouflage. Some of them resemble fragments or animal feces, and one even wears hats that look like aggressive ants.
"We don't know the function of helmets, they seem to the human eye to mimic the environment in which animals live," Saidum said. ”
As shown in the picture above: the insects of the horned cicada family are strangely shaped, and the camouflage masters of nature.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="8" > the head of the helmet</h1>
The researchers studied genes involved in wing and helmet development and found similarities. During wing development, the same genes expressed in other thoracic segments are expressed during helmet development in the first thoracic segment (behind the head).
Prudham said: "It's remarkable, the helmet looks very different from the wing. In fact, they are not wings themselves; They are not used in flight. ”
Genes are expressed in all insects that normally stop developing wings (and other wing-like features, such as horned cicada helmets). In horned cicadas, these genes are still active and expressed, so some other part of the wing-forming pathway must be defective, which allows horned cicadas to grow their helmets.
As shown in the picture above: The helmet of the horned cicada, similar to the wings, but does not involve flight, takes on the most ornate shape. For example, this one, a specimen of a giant beast whose organs cover most of its body, with a forked spatula at the end.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="13" > body sculpting</h1>
To make their helmets, horned cicadas must first activate the wings of the body part that has been used for 250 million years. This is a special case for winged insects.
Insect wings first appeared on primitive winged insects about 350 million years ago, and they had wings on each section. For the next 100 million years, these wings were fixed to the second and third segments of the chest and remained in this state.
Planning for the insect's body, the overall blueprint of all the body parts of the insect's development, adding functionality is a very rare thing. Gradually, some insects have completely lost their wings, although losing features is much simpler than adding features.
Horned cicadas disguised as vespas
Horned cicadas disguise themselves as ants