Unusable wings on ground-dwelling beetles
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Suboptimal design > Unusable wings on ground-dwelling beetles
Flight is one of the main characteristics of insects. However, many beetles do not fly, such as some darkling beetles (family Tenebrionidae, eg Eleodes species), the Kauai flightless stag beetle (Apterocyclus honoluluensis), and so on. And yet, they have wings. Not only do the beetles live -- egg, larva, pupa, and adult -- entirely on the ground, and so don't need wings; not only are their wings rather reduced, and so probably couldn't get the critter off the ground even if it wanted to go; no, the real wonder is that the wing covers (elytra) are fused together, so that the wings cannot be used!
