7 ms·

Not just fireflys. All kinds of flying insects. I live in the Great Lakes region out in the country, and the need to clean my windshield and front license pla

Not just fireflys. All kinds of flying insects. I live in the Great Lakes region out in the country, and the need to clean my windshield and front license plate was a weekly requirement due to all the bug splatter from my daily commute into work. This need has plummeted in recent years. Another observation: Fish Flys They would be so thick, that I have seen snow shovels and once even a snow-plow used to clear them off the street! (I worked at a full-service gas station in my teen years, the snow shovel was necessary for that 1 week in May-June). You couldn't walk from a parking lot into a store without slipping from the sheer number that get crushed when you walk. The insect apocalypse is already here, and we are fucked.

cainxinth 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windshield_phenomenon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windshield_phenomenon
- dontbenebby 4y ago
  Thanks for the pointer, now my morning is shot as I dig through old diaries and photos rather than doing something productive. It's just a sample size of one, but by the time I got rid of my car, which I'd had through the twenty aughts, I no longer had to memorize which gas stations actually changed the windshield fluid. Maybe that's why some people have more bugs: they're coming out of the windshield fluid tanks at dodgy petrol shops whose cleaner buckets are all full of rainwater. :-) For context, I drove from Bloomington, Indiana to the Bay Area twice. First time a more northern route via Colorado, the second time a southern route through the ABQ area with a stopover at the Flamingo in Vegas, since at the time they had a valet and REALLY reasonable rooms, but I wouldn't repeat that even if they kept those amenities -- driving within Las Vegas was the scariest experience of my life. Just trying to turn right out of a gas station near the strip after having taken my tank up to full was nerve wracking. I felt safer on the 101 where I could let people overtake me and put the cruise control at 10 above the speed limit and listen to the audiobooks I had burned onto five MP3 CDs in a 5 disc changer. But very rarely did I encounter that stereotypical "SPLAT" of a bug, let alone so many I had to clean the windshield... the issue was more dust and grime.
- sva_ 4y ago
  I sometimes wonder how long it would take insects to evolve an instinct to avoid places that smell of gasoline (if many of those who don't detect it get squashed on a windshield). Of course I'm not denying the decrease in insect populations, which has been observed independently in many ways.
deleted 4y ago
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fullstop 4y ago
I do not doubt this at all, but I also have to imagine that vehicles are more aerodynamic than they were a decade ago. I also remember keeping a squeegee in the car to remove "bug paste" from the windshield after the wipers couldn't handle any more bug guts.
- boringg 4y ago
  > I do not doubt this at all, but I also have to imagine that vehicles are more aerodynamic than they were a decade ago. They also mentioned their license plate. It's something I have observed as well - the great bug decline or die off. It speaks to food web being insecure.
  - fullstop 4y ago
    Also, according to the Wiki article that cainxinth mentioned, more aerodynamic vehicles are apparently worse for flying insects. It seems somewhat counter-intuitive, but perhaps the more boxy vehicles push the insects away before they can be crushed.
    - boringg 4y ago
      I can see that from a physics perspective -- there is a larger pocket of air in front of a boxy vehicle.
- dontbenebby 4y ago
  >I also remember keeping a squeegee in the car to remove "bug paste" from the windshield after the wipers couldn't handle any more bug guts. Keep the keycard from a motel around, not only can you use them to open many poorly designed doors without breaking your actual credit card[0], they're great for scraping crap like that off windshields. Just heat up water in the microwave (being sure to poke the thing with a wooden chopstick or something in case it explodes, though 30-60s should just make it extremely warm[1]) then dump it right on there, then scrape that crap off and use napkins from McDonald's or whatever to get the mess off. [0] I won't detail how - I taught someone how to do this to avoid lockout fees freshmen year, he allegedly broke into some woman's room to "prank" her who he was NOT friends with, then I had to sit through a dressing down by res life as the RAs continued to do pretty much the same thing, repeatedly, but to look for liquor rather than invent a cute reason to only "prank" the hotties from the soccer team. (Even autistic hackers notice when your invasions of privacy only involve people you want to... "date".) [1] https://www.fda.gov/radiation-emitting-products/home-business-and-entertainment-products/risk-burns-eruptions-hot-water-overheated-microwave-ovens https://www.fda.gov/radiation-emitting-products/home-busines...
throwaway894345 4y ago
My Tesla is plastered with bugs any time I leave Chicago. I don’t doubt the insect populations are falling, but I don’t relate to all of these clean car claims. It must vary a lot within the Great Lakes region.
- Comevius 4y ago
  I think insect variety in that case is restricted to a few species that keep thriving due to the sudden lack of predators. Like that brown marmorated stink bug that's killing the crops.
  - throwaway894345 4y ago
    Yeah, after hand scrubbing the "grill" of my car several times this year (the concave plastic bit that replaces a grill on lower-end Teslas), it definitely seems like a lot of flies, but I'm no entomologist.
  - fullstop 4y ago
    That stink bug, along with the spotted lantern fly, were invasive species from Asia which were first discovered in the USA --- in Allentown Pennsylvania! That's right, the same place referenced in the article.
rootusrootus 4y ago
> The insect apocalypse is already here, and we are fucked. Wasn't there a post a year or so back on HN that basically said it's a measurement problem, not an actual insect apocalypse? I'll have to try to find that. Seems like I can never know what to believe any more. I'd also want to know ... what does it matter? Are we seeing measurable knock-on effects from fewer insects? We should be, if they're critical to our ecosystems. If we're not, then... do we care? Seems like a legitimate question. Not that we want them to go extinct necessarily, but it could be worth tempering the panic.
- Tagbert 4y ago
  There was an article a few months ago using measurements of impacts to license plates and it found a real drop of 60% in insect populations. The license plate is place to measure as it is not really affected by the airflow changes that some people suggest are the reason we see fewer impact. Here is a news story: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/environment/article/2022/05/10/in-the-uk-thousands-of-drivers-have-confirmed-the-collapse-of-the-insect-population_5982945_114.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/environment/article/2022/05/10/in-... With so many insects missing, that is likely to have impacts on other animals and plants that would eventually impact humans. These creatures are food for other animals and pollinators for crop plants. Beyond that, insect loss is an indicator that something is happening to our environment and the effects are probably not going to be positive. Treat this as a warning. Edit: added statement about license plat vs airflow
  - bitxbitxbitcoin 4y ago
    Is it possible that it is a redistribution of the insect population to have more walkers than flyers or maybe even flying insects have learned how to avoid vehicles? How have bird strikes by cars changed over the last century? What if part of the issue is that we aren’t accounting for certain species starting to fly 8 feet higher?m because of the obvious evolutionary pressure?
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    I actually wouldn't be surprised at all if we've improved airflow relative to license plates, as well. The whole push to increase fuel economy means figuring out how to get air not to hit anything head-on, which includes bumpers and license plates. But in any case, I really would like better metrics than license plates and windshields. It amounts to anecdotes masquerading as data, and I have to assume that there are scientists who've made more accurate measures over the years that are more objective.
deleted 4y ago
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- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

cainxinth 4y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windshield_phenomenon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windshield_phenomenon

dontbenebby 4y ago
Thanks for the pointer, now my morning is shot as I dig through old diaries and photos rather than doing something productive. It's just a sample size of one, but by the time I got rid of my car, which I'd had through the twenty aughts, I no longer had to memorize which gas stations actually changed the windshield fluid. Maybe that's why some people have more bugs: they're coming out of the windshield fluid tanks at dodgy petrol shops whose cleaner buckets are all full of rainwater. :-) For context, I drove from Bloomington, Indiana to the Bay Area twice. First time a more northern route via Colorado, the second time a southern route through the ABQ area with a stopover at the Flamingo in Vegas, since at the time they had a valet and REALLY reasonable rooms, but I wouldn't repeat that even if they kept those amenities -- driving within Las Vegas was the scariest experience of my life. Just trying to turn right out of a gas station near the strip after having taken my tank up to full was nerve wracking. I felt safer on the 101 where I could let people overtake me and put the cruise control at 10 above the speed limit and listen to the audiobooks I had burned onto five MP3 CDs in a 5 disc changer. But very rarely did I encounter that stereotypical "SPLAT" of a bug, let alone so many I had to clean the windshield... the issue was more dust and grime.
sva_ 4y ago
I sometimes wonder how long it would take insects to evolve an instinct to avoid places that smell of gasoline (if many of those who don't detect it get squashed on a windshield). Of course I'm not denying the decrease in insect populations, which has been observed independently in many ways.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

fullstop 4y ago

I do not doubt this at all, but I also have to imagine that vehicles are more aerodynamic than they were a decade ago. I also remember keeping a squeegee in the car to remove "bug paste" from the windshield after the wipers couldn't handle any more bug guts.

boringg 4y ago
> I do not doubt this at all, but I also have to imagine that vehicles are more aerodynamic than they were a decade ago. They also mentioned their license plate. It's something I have observed as well - the great bug decline or die off. It speaks to food web being insecure.
- fullstop 4y ago
  Also, according to the Wiki article that cainxinth mentioned, more aerodynamic vehicles are apparently worse for flying insects. It seems somewhat counter-intuitive, but perhaps the more boxy vehicles push the insects away before they can be crushed.
  - boringg 4y ago
    I can see that from a physics perspective -- there is a larger pocket of air in front of a boxy vehicle.
dontbenebby 4y ago
>I also remember keeping a squeegee in the car to remove "bug paste" from the windshield after the wipers couldn't handle any more bug guts. Keep the keycard from a motel around, not only can you use them to open many poorly designed doors without breaking your actual credit card[0], they're great for scraping crap like that off windshields. Just heat up water in the microwave (being sure to poke the thing with a wooden chopstick or something in case it explodes, though 30-60s should just make it extremely warm[1]) then dump it right on there, then scrape that crap off and use napkins from McDonald's or whatever to get the mess off. [0] I won't detail how - I taught someone how to do this to avoid lockout fees freshmen year, he allegedly broke into some woman's room to "prank" her who he was NOT friends with, then I had to sit through a dressing down by res life as the RAs continued to do pretty much the same thing, repeatedly, but to look for liquor rather than invent a cute reason to only "prank" the hotties from the soccer team. (Even autistic hackers notice when your invasions of privacy only involve people you want to... "date".) [1] https://www.fda.gov/radiation-emitting-products/home-business-and-entertainment-products/risk-burns-eruptions-hot-water-overheated-microwave-ovens https://www.fda.gov/radiation-emitting-products/home-busines...

throwaway894345 4y ago

My Tesla is plastered with bugs any time I leave Chicago. I don’t doubt the insect populations are falling, but I don’t relate to all of these clean car claims. It must vary a lot within the Great Lakes region.

Comevius 4y ago
I think insect variety in that case is restricted to a few species that keep thriving due to the sudden lack of predators. Like that brown marmorated stink bug that's killing the crops.
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  Yeah, after hand scrubbing the "grill" of my car several times this year (the concave plastic bit that replaces a grill on lower-end Teslas), it definitely seems like a lot of flies, but I'm no entomologist.
- fullstop 4y ago
  That stink bug, along with the spotted lantern fly, were invasive species from Asia which were first discovered in the USA --- in Allentown Pennsylvania! That's right, the same place referenced in the article.

rootusrootus 4y ago

> The insect apocalypse is already here, and we are fucked. Wasn't there a post a year or so back on HN that basically said it's a measurement problem, not an actual insect apocalypse? I'll have to try to find that. Seems like I can never know what to believe any more. I'd also want to know ... what does it matter? Are we seeing measurable knock-on effects from fewer insects? We should be, if they're critical to our ecosystems. If we're not, then... do we care? Seems like a legitimate question. Not that we want them to go extinct necessarily, but it could be worth tempering the panic.

Tagbert 4y ago
There was an article a few months ago using measurements of impacts to license plates and it found a real drop of 60% in insect populations. The license plate is place to measure as it is not really affected by the airflow changes that some people suggest are the reason we see fewer impact. Here is a news story: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/environment/article/2022/05/10/in-the-uk-thousands-of-drivers-have-confirmed-the-collapse-of-the-insect-population_5982945_114.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/environment/article/2022/05/10/in-... With so many insects missing, that is likely to have impacts on other animals and plants that would eventually impact humans. These creatures are food for other animals and pollinators for crop plants. Beyond that, insect loss is an indicator that something is happening to our environment and the effects are probably not going to be positive. Treat this as a warning. Edit: added statement about license plat vs airflow
- bitxbitxbitcoin 4y ago
  Is it possible that it is a redistribution of the insect population to have more walkers than flyers or maybe even flying insects have learned how to avoid vehicles? How have bird strikes by cars changed over the last century? What if part of the issue is that we aren’t accounting for certain species starting to fly 8 feet higher?m because of the obvious evolutionary pressure?
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  I actually wouldn't be surprised at all if we've improved airflow relative to license plates, as well. The whole push to increase fuel economy means figuring out how to get air not to hit anything head-on, which includes bumpers and license plates. But in any case, I really would like better metrics than license plates and windshields. It amounts to anecdotes masquerading as data, and I have to assume that there are scientists who've made more accurate measures over the years that are more objective.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]