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Halteres
Pair of small club-shaped insect organs / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Halteres (/hælˈtɪəriːz/; singular halter or haltere) (from Ancient Greek: ἁλτῆρες, hand-held weights to give an impetus in leaping) are a pair of small club-shaped organs on the body of two orders of flying insects that provide information about body rotations during flight.[1] Insects of the large order Diptera (flies) have halteres which evolved from a pair of ancestral hindwings, while males of the much smaller order Strepsiptera (stylops)[2] have halteres which evolved from a pair of ancestral forewings.
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Halteres oscillate rapidly along with the wings and operate like vibrating structure gyroscopes:[3] any rotation of the plane of oscillation causes a force on the vibrating halteres by the Coriolis effect. The insect detects this force with sensory organs called campaniform sensilla and chordotonal organs located at the base of the halteres[3] and uses this information to interpret and correct its position in space. Halteres provide rapid feedback to the wing-steering muscles,[4] as well as to the muscles responsible for stabilizing the head.[5]