Insects, which comprise two thirds of all terrestrial species, have been dying off at alarming rates, with disastrous impacts on food chains and habitats, amateur German researchers have found
For almost 30 years they passed as quirky eccentrics, diligently setting up their insect traps in the Rhine countryside to collect tens of millions of bugs and creepy crawlers.
Now the group of German entomology enthusiasts can boast a world-class scientific treasure: evidence of what is described as one of Earth’s worst extinction phases since the dinosaurs vanished.
Insects, which comprise two thirds of all terrestrial species, have been dying off at alarming rates, with disastrous impacts on food chains and habitats, researchers say.
The home of the Amateur Entomology Society of Krefeld on the Dutch border is a former school building where thick curtains block out the sunlight.
Inside in glass cabinets are stored thousands of butterflies, their wings bleached by time, along with exotic fist-sized beetles and dragonflies, brought back from around the world by amateur collectors.
Treasure trove
Traditionally “entomology was mainly about drying and collecting […]
These kind of reports and my own observations feel devastating, a sense of profound loneliness arises that I don’t know what to do with. The beautiful natural world is rapidly disappearing and yet most people are entranced by the criminal enterprises that run the world.
Getting and spending, political fights without end, blame and shame, distraction and power grabs, war and weapons, immigrants and concentration camps, storms and flooding, drought and fires, heat and death worldwide. I am most certainly not a christian but it is sounding like the end times they go on about when their f’ing savior will return. As the Brits might say we humans are too clever by half!
I have done a lot of research in the past on climate change because I wanted to know the facts. But the news coming out now is very depressing, not really for me because I’m 60 but I have 2 kids yet to have their own kids and I feel for them; that they will not have the chance of life that I have had. We will look back at this time as the golden age of humanity; before the mess that we created destroys the fabric of society. It is increasingly hard to come to grips with it all.