Insect wings may have begun to evolve as lateral extensions of the body that were used as heat dissipaters for thermoregulation. When they had become sufficiently large, these extensions became useful for gliding through the air. Additional selection refined them as flight-producing wines. If this hypothesis is correct, modern insect wings would be an example of _ .58) A) an adaptive radiation B) mutations C) the loss of Hox genes in the evolution of new form D) an exaptation

Evolution is the process of the the change in the characteristics of the species with respect to time. Natural selection, mutation and genetic drift is important for the evolution.

Exaptation may be defined as the biological phenomena that describe the development of the trait that has been co opted or co evolved other than the trait that has been selected for the natural selection. The flight producing wines is the extra trait that has been developed in the insects.

Thus, the correct answer is option (D).