Nearly every year since 1999 Donna and I have been running an event for the local Miata club called the Bug Splat. Regular readers know what I’m talking about because almost every year I have blogged about it here. If today is your first visit, read a few and come back.
It has seemed to me that with each passing year, the quantity of bugs smashed on the front of Miatas each summer has steadily decreased. I know this hasn’t really bothered the participants, they are in it mostly to be led on a drive around the local back roads with the ice cream finish, but it has bothered me. I have contacted an Entomologist at a local university, changed routes several times and even tried adjusting the starting time to optimize our interactions with insects, all to no avail.
Turns out that it doesn’t matter how often I monkey with the setup of the Bug Splat Rally, because German scientists have actually proved my Diminishing Bug Hypothesis – Warning of ‘ecological Armageddon’ after dramatic plunge in insect numbers