I’ve noticed that many of the biggest insects can fly. Of course there are some large insects that don’t fly, like the Giant Weta or the Giant Stickbugs, but many other large insects like Goliath Beetles, Atlas Moths, Giant Water Bugs, Tarantula Hawks, Hercules Beetles, Giant Hornets, and many more, and heck, even the largest insects that ever lived on Earth were Meganeuras or Meganeuropsis Giant Dragonflies, Insects that can fly! Wouldn’t larger size and weight be a disadvantage over flying creatures? What makes it more advantageous for a flying insect to be larger-sized?
In: Biology
Greater access to nutrients. They have a far larger effective range and have less of a selective pressure on their size to be energy efficient. Also larger wings increase this range and access and efficiency though obviously this does encounter diminishing returns, but for the insect world larger wings are generally more efficient.
Firstly, flying insects in general are not bigger than non-flying insects.
But, if anything, It is likely that the reasoning is the other way around: it’s not that flying insects have to be bigger, it’s that bigger insects have to fly.
Bigger insects require more resources, and so need to cover more area. Flying helps.
Bigger insects cannot live close by to each other or in as big numbers like smaller insects, and so have to fly to find each other.
Bigger insects are often slower, and bigger targets for predators, and so need to be able to fly to escape.
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