Thrips fringed wings

Finally a decent shot to showcase its wings. Look so feathery! Taken at night in Singapore forest.

Quote from www.amentsoc.org/insects/fact-…
Thrips are also known as thunder flies, because they sometimes take to the air in huge numbers (especially in thundery weather) and are occasionally irritating as they can get into people's eyes when they fly around like this.

Thrips found in the British Isles are tiny insects, just 1-2mm long, but in other parts of the world they can be up to 14 mm. They have two pairs of narrow, fringed wings, although some are wingless. The scientific name for the order - Thysanoptera - comes from the Greek thysanos (fringe) and pteron (wing).

They are not difficult to spot, as they are often found on flowerheads. A close look at a dandelion often reveals a number of them. And they are rather interesting creatures.

More than 6,000 species of thrips are known around the world, with over 300 of these in Europe and only around 150 native to Britain. Telling these tiny insect species apart is not always easy!

And before we go any further - a single thrips is still a thrips - not a thrip (just like a single sheep is a sheep)!
What's special about thrips?

Thrips are certainly a little bit special among the insects.

They are special firstly because of their life cycle. Insect life cycles can be described as either complete or incomplete. Insects that have the so-called 'complete' life cycle go through the stages of being an egg, from which emerges a larva, which then becomes a pupa (within which their wings develop) and then an adult emerges from the pupa. Essentially, incomplete life cyclers miss out the pupal stage and the larvae (called nymphs) look like their parents.

Thrips do have this complete life cycle - except that their wings develop outside the pupa, which makes one wonder why they bother to have a pupa at all. Not only that, but they have more than one pupal stage. Yet, during their larval stages, they look like miniature adults!

Another odd thing about thrips is their mouthparts. They lose one half of their mandibles during development, so they are lop sided, or asymmetrical, with only one mandible on the left hand side!