College Name: CMR National PU College ITPL

Student’s Name: Ramya Nambiar, Gopika Anil and Shwetha Santhosh

Sample observed: Wing of beetle and housefly

Site of collection of sample: Neighborhood park

Beetles are a group of insects that form the order Coleoptera, in the superorder Endopterygota. Usually we believe that beetles don’t have wings as they are found crawling on the ground however they have two pairs of wings attached to their thorax. One pair of wings( the forewings) is hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The elytra, protects the flying wings and body. As it is harder and present on upper surface of thorax, it reduces the flying efficiency of the beetle. Due to the presence of elytra, the beetle’s wings under the foldoscope looks darker and denser than the wings of other arthropods.
Contrary to this, the wings of a housefly seems to be much thinner and looks translucent under the foldoscope. The fly’s wing is made up of chitin which in its natural form is translucent and due to this the wing appears almost glassy. Like other Dipterans, houseflies have only one pair of wings and what would be the hind pair is reduced to small halteres that aid in flight stability. The extreme thinness of the wing helps increase flight efficiency.