• Question: could we ever evolve and grow wing?

    Asked by imbatman to Marcus, James, Martin, Rob, Suzanne on 16 Mar 2012. This question was also asked by eidas2, 11danjup.
    • Photo: Martin Zaltz Austwick

      Martin Zaltz Austwick answered on 15 Mar 2012:

      Maybe, but it would take millions of years and it might be quite hard for us to actually fly. They’d need to be pretty big wings.

    • Photo: James Boone

      James Boone answered on 15 Mar 2012:

      There used to be flying dinosaurs that were bigger than us, but nowadays I don’t the there is a single species as big as us that can fly. As Martin said, the process of evolution takes so long, millions of years for even small changes! Maybe nature decided that it’s terribly inefficient to use wings to lift anything heavier than a bird.

    • Photo: Marcus Gallagher-Jones

      Marcus Gallagher-Jones answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      The big problem with this is we have no reason to right now. Wings are incredibly evolutionarily expensive. They get in the way when you aren’t flying and they also require a lot of energy to use. Since we have things that can fly for us (planes) it’s unlikely we would grow wings. The problem is that evolution is the process of adapting to your environment but as humans we have a tendency to adapt our environment to us.

    • Photo: Suzanne McEndoo

      Suzanne McEndoo answered on 18 Mar 2012:

      It would be pretty awesome, but I think it’s pretty unlikely. We’re unlikely to naturally evolve them, unless our environment changes an awful lot. Maybe we could genetically engineer them at some point, but that would be incredibly hard to do and probably not the best use of our resources. There are a lot easier ways to fly around, even if it’s not as fun.

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