Where have all the insects gone?

[Veganite]

I've often wondered this, myself. I remember the bug splatter on my parent’s car windshield when I was a kid. It just about made gas station windshield washing mandatory. I remember camping trips where the night would come alive with bugs. Mind you, I still see mosquitoes and black flies when camping, but the bulk of the bugs at night have definitely diminished since I was a young man.

Where have all the insects gone?

Entomologists call it the windshield phenomenon. "If you talk to people, they have a gut feeling. They remember how insects used to smash on your windscreen," says Wolfgang Wägele, director of the Leibniz Institute for Animal Biodiversity in Bonn, Germany. Today, drivers spend less time scraping and scrubbing. "I'm a very data-driven person," says Scott Black, executive director of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation in Portland, Oregon. "But it is a visceral reaction when you realize you don't see that mess anymore."

Full Article

 

[Sax]

I don't own a car so can't attest to the windshield phenomenon. But being relatively new to the midwest I can assure you some places are absolutely teeming with insects. Giant moths, praying mantises, fireflies....deafeningly loud hordes of cicadas...stick insects, dragonflies. There are some seriously cool insects out there! No doubt habitat destruction and pesticides have culled their numbers. I've heard in some cases they're going extinct faster than they can be discovered/taxonimized.

But even as thousands of new species are being discovered every year, thousands more seem to be disappearing, swept away in an ecological catastrophe that has come to be known as the sixth extinction

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...of-loss-great-insect-die-off-sixth-extinction

 

[Veganite]

@Sax
That was an interesting read.

I do know from my age perspective, I've seen a huge decline in insect roadkill since I was a youngster, and I definitely see the windshield phenomenon as real. It's really hard to forget how thick our windshields used to get. I'd say that figure of an 80 per cent decline is pretty close to accurate.

 

[Kellyr]

That's pretty amazing. Something I've never even thought about, to be honest. We never had thick coatings of dead bugs all over our windshields, but there would usually be a couple that ended up there at least when traveling in the mountains, and now that I think of it, that doesn't seem to happen quite as much.

As was mentioned above - habitat destruction and pesticides likely play a role, as well as climate change.

Maybe putting a positive spin on it - vehicles are a lot more aerodynamic than they used to be so perhaps more bugs are getting swept over our vehicles instead of smack into our windshields.

 

[Veganite]

Maybe putting a positive spin on it - vehicles are a lot more aerodynamic than they used to be so perhaps more bugs are getting swept over our vehicles instead of smack into our windshields.

That theory was mentioned in the second paragraph (below) of that article. By the sounds of the Land Rover, it doesn't seem as likely as habitat and pesticides might be. There's no question the phenomenon is noticeable to me. It's unbelievably shocking, really. It never even really occurred to me before reading this article.

"Some people argue that cars today are more aerodynamic and therefore less deadly to insects. But Black says his pride and joy as a teenager in Nebraska was his 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1—with some pretty sleek lines. "I used to have to wash my car all the time. It was always covered with insects." Lately, Martin Sorg, an entomologist here, has seen the opposite: "I drive a Land Rover, with the aerodynamics of a refrigerator, and these days it stays clean."


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[Jamie in Chile]

I haven't seen any science but in this case we have a high probability of insect decline based on strongly anecdotal evidence. I am not sure if the science is out there. I am only 38 and have travelled and move around too much to have a definite opinion, but I asked my Dad and he agrees about the decline for sure...

I think human activity is probably destroying habitats and loss of habitats and other impacts of human activity causes insect decline.