Moths

Have you stepped outside at night recently, turned on an outdoor globe? Whereupon once there would have been a crowd of moths attracted by the light, now there is seldom one?

On a road trip in the countryside, have you noticed there is no longer the need to clean all the dead insects off the windscreen when you stop for fuel?

Where have all the insects gone?. What is pollinating our crops nowadays?

We hear a great deal about the plight of koalas but what about our insects that are vanishing, becoming extinct in our lifetimes? If an entire phylum goes extinct, how does that upset the equilibrium of our Mother Earth?

Find out what roles insects play in the ecology of the planet we live on.

Why are our insect numbers dropping dramatically? The Conversation online newspaper article today points out the bleeding obvious. We know that men who wear tight underpants and trousers lose the fertility of their sperm because of excess body heat around their scrotums. Apparently so do other animals and insects too, as well as coral.

The 2019-20 drought, heat wave and fires brought extreme temperatures to eastern Australia. Now we have an extreme drop in the number of insects. Are out wild birds and animals having a similar loss of fertility? Is the fall in the numbers of wildlife and the growing risks of extinction due to rising temperatures as well as to manmade chemicals in the environment?

“The prediction that tropical and sub-tropical species may be more vulnerable to climate change is not new. But the fertility findings suggest the negative impact of climate change may be even worse than anticipated.” The Conversation 25th May, 2021. (Belinda van Heerwaarden and Ary Hoffmann, the University of Melbourne.)