[OneWingedShark]

>Take a look at the insect world.

Actually that brings up a good point: there are wings in three distinct classes of animals (four if you count dinosaurs), these being: Insect, Avian, and Mammal (bat).

Now, it seems rather unlikely that these all evolved in serial, yet there is no common ancestor possessing wings between all of these. (Dinos are more advanced than insects, insects don’t have vertebrae, etc.)

[Battle Axe]

If you want to look at the embryology of the insect, it was a segmented creature. Each segment had a pair of legs, a pair of spiracles (breathing holes), and maybe a pair of wings. In Insecta proper, the first three segments ended up with the legs, the 2nd and 3rd segment wings.

Diptra, higher evolved than Hymenoptera, according to some, had only two sets of wings because the others got in the way. A horsefly can fly faster than a beetle. More space in the 2nd segment for muscles to power the wings. Hymenoptera does hook the wings together, they are not working independently. Beetles raise the elytra and just flap the 3rd segment membranous ones.

I really don't buy the 4 winged bird. How many did they find? ONE? and it died and was fossilized because it could not get off the ground?