The Imd pathway appears to have evolved in the last common ancestor of centipedes and insects. However certain lineages of insects have since lost core components of Imd signalling. The first-discovered and most famous example is the pea aphid Acyrthosiphon pisum. It is thought that plant-feeding aphids have lost Imd signalling as they bear a number of bacterial endosymbionts, including both nutritional symbionts that would be disrupted by aberrant expression of antimicrobial peptides, and defensive symbionts that cover for some of the immune deficiency caused by loss of Imd signalling. It has also been suggested that antimicrobial peptides, the downstream components of Imd signalling, may be detrimental to fitness and lost by insects with exclusively plant-feeding ecologies.