A new app has been launched to help track the number of bugs that end up splatted on car number plates. The idea is to help scientists survey the insect population.
Before making a journey, drivers are asked to clean their car’s number plate. They then count the number of bugs splatted at the end of a journey using the Bugs Matter app, which sends a photograph to the scientists running the project.
The survey is based on the ‘windscreen phenomenon’, says Bugs Matter, a term given to the observation that people tend to find fewer insects squashed on the windscreens of their cars compared with several decades ago. However, evidence of this decline is thin on the ground.
The campaign is being run by the Buglife charity and alongside the Kent, Gwent, Essex and Somerset Wildlife Trusts. The trial is set to run from 1 June through to 31 August.
‘A major concern to everybody’
“Many people remark on not having to clean bug splats off their car windscreens as much as they did 20 or 30 years ago,” said Andrew Whitehouse, countries manager at Buglife.
“The falling abundance of flying insects should be a major concern to everybody as these essential creatures are, quite simply, the small things that run the world.
“In 2019, dozens of citizen scientists helped Kent Wildlife Trust gather data on the numbers of insects squashed on car number plates. The results showed that the number of insects counted was 50 percent lower than in a survey using the same method carried out by the RSPB in 2004. This is a startling figure, although not enough evidence to say it represents a decline.”
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