| Most insects can fly, although flight ability has been lost within various insect groups. Why flight, a useful adaptation in many circumstances, would be lost, is not entirely clear. Habitats or environmental circumstances where flight is not selected for may include islands, caves, and alpine areas, along with high winds, cold temperatures, and lack of predation. To investigate if caves or alpine areas are correlated with loss of flight, I conducted molecular phylogenetic analyses of two Hawaiian moth genera Noctuidae: Schrankia , some of which live in caves and some on the surface, and Xyloryctidae: Thyrocopa, with both alpine and non-alpine species. I also used a "drop test" to confirm in the field that supposedly flightless species truly could not fly.;Results indicate that cave Schrankia are not always flightless, and that one species, which sometimes lives in caves but also sometimes flies on the surface, has colonized caves on both Maui and Hawaii islands. However, in Thyrocopa, flightlessness has evolved twice, as has pronounced jumping ability once on Haleakala volcano (Maui), and once on Mauna Loa volcano (Hawaii Island). Other closely related, flighted Thyrocopa species also occur on the windswept and tiny Northwest Hawaiian Islands.;I also present here taxonomic revisions of both the Hawaiian Schrankia species and Thyrocopa. One new species in Schrankia, and eight in Thyrocopa, are described. One of these new Thyrocopa species is the flightless Mauna Kea taxon, which has lost in less than 0.5 million years the ability to fly. Lastly, using video analysis of Thyrocopa jumps, the first description of this locomotor behavior for any lepidopteran is quantified. |
