A subclass of wingless insects, including springtails and silverfish, that never develop wings even as adults.
From Greek 'apteros' (wingless) plus '-ota' (a taxonomic suffix). First formally named in the 19th century as naturalists classified insects by the absence or presence of wings.
Silverfish and springtails have existed for over 300 million years without wings—that's a successful evolutionary strategy, not a 'primitive' one, proving that 'primitive' is often what scientists call things they don't yet understand.
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