The Evolution of Insect Flight

This is the first book on this subject since J W S Pringle's classic Insect Flight was published in 1957. Much has been written since on applied and ecological aspects of flight, but consideration of the question of the origin of wings and flight has been largely confined to armchair speculation in a scattered literature. To make matters worse, much of the recent empirical work has only appeared in Russain. A,K. Brodsky is a leading Russian authority on insect flight, a pioneer in the use of empirical aerodynamic techniques to unravel the mechanisms which underlie insect flight and hence its origins. By uniting fossil, structural, and phylogenetic information with his empirical studies, he draws a coherent, well-substantialed picture of the evolution of insect flight. The text is illustrated by numerous fine line drawings. The first book on insect flight since J.W.S. Pringle's classic Insect Flight was published in 1957 Written by leading Russian authority in the field - provides Western world with access to much previously unpublished material Draws togther the diverse strands of fossil evidence, structure, phylogeny, aerodynamics, and behaviour to form a coherent picture Beautifully illustrated with numerous fine line drawings

Table of Contents:
Introduction Part I: Basic principles of insect flight 1: Structure of the wing apparatus 2: Mode of action of the wing apparatus 3: The aerodynamics of insect flight 4: Flight and behaviour Part II The evolution of insect flight 5: The origins of flight and wings in insects 6: Early forms of flight 7: Flight based in hindwings 8: From functionally four-winged to functionally two-winged flight 9: Progress in insect flight 10: Looking into the past: the process of evolution, and insect wing apparatus Postscriptum References Index

Review :
`The general account of flight occupies a third of the book, and will be widely useful ... but for the anatomy, mechanisms and evolution of insect flight it has no rivals.' R. McNeill Alexander, Nature, Vol. 371, September 1994 `there is much fertile ground for investigation for which this work is a milestone' E. Geoffrey Hancock, The Glasgow Naturalist, Vol. 22, Feb 1995 `The Evolution of Insect Flight has been well worth waiting for. It is a remarkable work, quite outstanding in its scope and breadth of vision ... what has surprised and delighted me is the magnificent functional treatment of the morphology of the flight system as a whole.' Robin J. Wootton, University of Exeter, Trends in Ecology and Evolution Vol. 10, No. 7, July 1995 `The Evolution of Insect Flight has been well worth waiting for. It is a remarkable work, quite outstanding in its scope and breadth of vision. This book is nothing less than the first comparative functional account of the morphology of the insect pterothorax, and this on its own fully justifies its publication. It is also the fullest account of pterothoracic morphology since Matsuda's massive and wholly un-functional monograph, and it is clearer, better illustrated, and infinitely more interesting. The work is a stimulating presentation of the opinions and conclusions, based on a solid body of research, of an exceptionally well-informed, innovative entomologist.' Robin J. Wootton, University of Exeter, TREE, vol. 10, no. 7, July 1995 `the main importance of this book is the cumulative data about flight of recent insects, and Oxford University Press should be acknowledged for publishing many of the author's original results, which were thus far available almost exclusively in Russian ... The book should be read by specialists capable of sifting through the volume for useful information.' P. Svacha, Eur. J. Entomol. 95, 1998