Britannica Sources used in this answer

Why can adult aphids be winged or wingless?

Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.

Illustration showing a variety of adult insects, each labeled with its common name and order, including walkingstick, earwig, stonefly, tree cricket, dragonfly, female scale, cat flea, thrips, sucking louse, thysanuran, ant, scarab beetle, stinkbug, mosquito, and cabbage butterfly, highlighting their diverse shapes and sizes. — insect An illustration of insect diversity.

Adult aphids exhibit both winged and wingless forms as a strategy to manage their life cycles and environmental conditions. The presence of wings is typically linked to the need for migration and colonization.1

Seasonal Migration: Early generations of aphids in the spring are generally wingless. However, as the season progresses, winged individuals appear to facilitate migration to a secondary host plant, often an annual plant, to continue their reproductive cycle.1
Life Cycle Completion: In the latter part of the season, winged aphids of both sexes appear to migrate back to the primary host plant, which is typically a perennial, to mate and lay overwintering eggs.1
Environmental Adaptation: In some species that have transitioned to a subterranean lifestyle, the need for migration has been lost, and these aphids no longer develop wings.2

This polymorphism allows aphids to balance the energy-intensive process of wing development with the immediate benefits of staying on a stable, local food source versus the necessity of dispersing to new hosts.12