00:00If it ever feels like there are less bugs
00:01squashing up all over your windshield
00:03after a long drive than there used to be,
00:05it's probably because there are.
00:06The windshield phenomenon was discovered
00:08by a group of scientists in Denmark
00:10who drove the same road for 20 years
00:12and counted how many insects hit their windshield,
00:15becoming the first glaring warning sign
00:17of what is being called the insect apocalypse.
00:20Because over the course of two decades,
00:22they saw an 80% decline in insect abundance
00:25and a similar decline in the population of birds
00:28that fed on those insects.
00:30To make matters even worse,
00:31there was a follow-up study done in 2019
00:33called the Splatometer,
00:35which revealed cars were hitting 50% fewer insects
00:38than they were in 2004.
00:40The initial thought was that modern cars
00:42may be more aerodynamic, resulting in less bug splats,
00:45but it turned out to be the opposite
00:47with modern cars actually hitting more.
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