SKY FULL OF INVERTEBRATES
Biologists have recorded a staggering volume of insect life in the skies above Britain. The 10-year study, which used radar to track insect movements at heights above 150m, reveals that about 3.5 trillion insects fly over southern England each year. That’s nearly eight times the biomass of the 30 million songbirds that migrate between the UK and Africa.
Numbers peak in spring and autumn, when the prevailing direction of travel also corresponds with that of migrant songbirds.
“It’s basically a seasonal migratory event that results in a redistribution of the population,” Jason Chapman of Rothamsted Research in Hertfordshire told BBC Wildlife. “Our work shows there are hundreds, if not thousands, of migratory insect species we didn’t know about.
“It’s as if we’d just discovered that our songbirds are migrants. I mean, there was a time when it was thought that swallows hibernated on the bottom of ponds.”