![]() Most extant orders of insects developed during the Permian period. The Pterygotes (winged insects) underwent a major radiation in the Carboniferous (356 to 299 million years ago) while the Endopterygota (insects that go through different life stages with metamorphosis) underwent another major radiation in the Permian (299 to 252 million years ago). Global climate conditions changed several times during the history of Earth, and along with it the diversity of insects. The oldest insect fossil has been proposed to be Rhyniognatha hirsti, estimated to be 400 million years old, but the insect identity of the fossil has been contested. The first insects were landbound, but about 400 million years ago in the Devonian period one lineage of insects evolved flight, the first animals to do so. Insects are thought to have evolved from a group of crustaceans. It is estimated that the class of insects originated on Earth about 480 million years ago, in the Ordovician, at about the same time terrestrial plants appeared. The most recent understanding of the evolution of insects is based on studies of the following branches of science: molecular biology, insect morphology, paleontology, insect taxonomy, evolution, embryology, bioinformatics and scientific computing. ![]() ![]() ![]() Development of insects from an ancestral crustacean and their subsequent radiation Evolution has produced astonishing variety of appendages in insects, such as these antennae. ![]()
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