A study published in autumn 2018 documented a 76 percent decline in the total biomass of flying insects (crawling bugs were not sampled) netted at 63 locations in Germany over the last three decades. Losses in midsummer, at the peak of insect abundance, exceeded 80 percent. Pesticide use and loss of suitable habitat to farming are suspected as the leading culprits. One of the study’s coauthors described the implications thus: “If we lose the insects, then everything is going to collapse.” The New York Times, in a somber editorial, described it as an “insect Armageddon.”
