Insect Apocalypse - Silent Extinction
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- Опубликовано: 20 окт 2024
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It is generally accepted that we are now at the beginning of a sixth mass extinction. It's caused by humans, and it might be the first that affects the six-legged arthropods among us. Noted Bug Zaddy Kyle Hill explains what’s happening to the insects, and what will happen to us if we let them disappear forever.
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Nice and interesting video as always, talking about extinction would you be interested doing a video about the mass extinction we actually caused and just for curiosity how much wildlife can we continue to destroy until we go extinct 100% to?
Idk what it is but you got a mic movement feedback, sounds like a mic flexing i genuinely don’t know how to explain it
Thank you so much for raising awareness to help bugs and insects and other countless different species who are so often underappreciated. Spiders are so important too and I absolutely love them as well. I really enjoyed the humor in the video too. 😂 You make wonderful content.
Bugs getting extinct is a bit far fetched. We haven't even killed all the malaria mosquitoes and we are really trying.....
The funny thing is we are seeing more and more nuisance bugs because all the grass we plant increases the amount of nuisance bugs while decreasing good bugs such as bees, butterflies, and lightning bugs
Yes let's all plant a native bush in our yard ❤️ it truly helps! Plus less mowing js
@@elwoodcope7152 hoas are deeply criminal and illegitimate organizations. They should not be legal in any way shape or form. I'm sorry you have to tangle with one but you made a mistake by accepting it into your community.
Nobody but NOBODY has the right to tell anyone else how to live on their own property. I mean I can't believe this has to be said this is insane.
And you PAY for this!?! You're paying for someone to take your rights away, I don't get it.
As long as it doesn't have to do with public safety or actual laws, nobody has that right. I mean it's such a flagrant violation to me I can't believe these things were ever allowed to exist in the first place! Why do you people accept this kind of slavery?? I'm deeply curious.
My God it's YOUR HOME!! they have no moral nor legal authority. I don't think a court would back them up if they tried to move against you, and if they did shame on them, that is dirty and literally spits in the face of the concept of homeowner rights.
@@elwoodcope7152
@elwoodcope7152 ho@s are deeply criminal and illegitimate organizations. They should not be legal in any way shape or form. I'm sorry you have to tangle with one but you made a mistake by accepting it into your community.
Nobody but NOBODY has the right to tell anyone else how to live on their own property. I mean I can't believe this has to be said this is insane.
And you PAY for this!?! You're paying for someone to take your rights away, I don't get it.
As long as it doesn't have to do with public safety or actual laws, nobody has that right. I mean it's such a flagrant violation to me I can't believe these things were ever allowed to exist in the first place! Why do you people accept this kind of slavery?? I'm deeply curious.
My God it's YOUR HOME!! they have no moral nor legal authority. I don't think a court would back them up if they tried to move against you, and if they did shame on them, that is dirty and literally spits in the face of the concept of homeowner rights.
@elwoodcope7152
@elwoodcope7152 ho@s are deeply criminal and illegitimate organizations. They should not be legal in any way shape or form. I'm sorry you have to tangle with one but you made a mistake by accepting it into your community.
Nobody but NOBODY has the right to tell anyone else how to live on their own property. I mean I can't believe this has to be said this is insane.
And you PAY for this!?! You're paying for someone to take your rights away, I don't get it.
As long as it doesn't have to do with public safety or actual laws, nobody has that right. I mean it's such a flagrant violation to me I can't believe these things were ever allowed to exist in the first place! Why do you people accept this kind of slavery?? I'm deeply curious.
My God it's YOUR HOME!! they have no moral nor legal authority. I don't think a court would back them up if they tried to move against you, and if they did shame on them, that is dirty and literally spits in the face of the concept of homeowner rights.
@elwoodcope7152
@elwoodcope7152 ho s are deeply criminal and illegitimate organizations. They should not be legal in any way shape or form. I'm sorry you have to tangle with one but you made a mistake by accepting it into your community.
Nobody but NOBODY has the right to tell anyone else how to live on their own property. I mean I can't believe this has to be said this is insane.
And you PAY for this!?! You're paying for someone to take your rights away, I don't get it.
As long as it doesn't have to do with public safety or actual laws, nobody has that right. I mean it's such a flagrant violation to me I can't believe these things were ever allowed to exist in the first place! Why do you people accept this kind of slavery?? I'm deeply curious.
My God it's YOUR HOME!! they have no moral nor legal authority. I don't think a court would back them up if they tried to move against you, and if they did shame on them, that is dirty and literally spits in the face of the concept of homeowner rights.
I've lived in this house for 22 years. When we moved in, every summer we were plagued by flies and mosquitos if we left the windows open without nets. This summer I can count the number of flies we've had inside on the fingers of one hand and there have been no mosquitos. Not many small birds, either.
i envy you, i also lives in my current house for over 20 years and yet, i have not able to sleep without turning on the insect repellant...
but again, i lives in a tropical country where insect around all year round... gotta love those dengi fever carrying mosquitos..
ive seen the opposite, far more flies than there used to be.. mosquitoes on the other hand... seemingly absent compared to last summer.. now THAT is the weird part.
@@XxWarmancxX Depends where you are. Hot places are getting hotter and probably losing insects, while colder areas which didn't have many insects are starting to see an uprising
@@Canzandridas I live in what's considered the cool temperate climate zone of the northern hemisphere. And where I live, we do indeed have tropical species of mosquitoes now - especially the asian tiger mosquito is frequently making headlines these days - but overall, there are way fewer mosquitoes (or insects in general) than there used to be. Wasps too. It's not like I particularly miss those either. I don't exactly have fond memories of those summers when I got terrorised non-stop by those mindlessly angry, hate-filled murder-bugs. But nonetheless, it's quite noticeable that they have become merely an occasional nuisance now. Our climate is still not particularly hot, but it's drier than it used to be. Not saying that's the sole reason either - it's probably way more complicated than that - but It probably is part of the issue.
@@zerocalvinyou're missing the point
I'm in Nova Scotia Canada.
I grew some cooking pumpkins this year and nearly EVERY flower fell off.
No bugs to pollinate even though six plants were within jumping distance from each other.
I caught it near the end of the flower cycle and managed to use ONE male flower for the rest of my plants. I'm very lucky I found it they only last one day.
Six plants that should each grow 8-12 fruit. I have 7 fruit total.
Bugs are needed
This is where I'm at, I was so heartbroken. Condolences and solidarity garden friend
I didn't plant much fruiting plants this year, but I noticed the same where there is hardly any evidence of pollination going on with them or my flowers. I also have many attractor plants like basil & mint, where you could hear the buzzing over 10 feet away in past years. Now only a couple bees at any given time, if you're looking very hard. I also have many black oil sunflowers I grow for the birds & the bumblebees loved to pollinate- they would even sleep overnight on them if they stayed out till it got too cold. Have yet to see a bee on them this year.
I've chalked it up to it just being a bad year, since we had a very bipolar spring that probably confused them/exhausted their resources. I hope it's just that & they can bounce back, since the severe drop from just a year ago is frankly alarming.
You just have to be the insect yourself and pollinate them then. Not much can be done about it
What do you cook in a pumpkin?
@@sacredcobra155 IN a pumpkin? No clue never tried that but I'd imagine it could work if you roasted the outside of the fruit on some open coals.
Fill it with stuff and stir it up.
I think you meant "what do I cook pumkins with or for"
Cooking pumpkins don't get very big. They are mostly filled with flesh, not very hollow. They grow fast and have a high sugar content.
You cook them into stew or cakes and pie.
Just about anything you would put potatoes into you can use pumpkin instead. If you like the flavor.
I grow them for my pigs and for pies.
You're such a kind soul for bringing attention to such an important but often overlooked topic. As you said 'Cats are cute, giant water bugs are not'
Where was the support for bugs when I was a kid? I was bullied for being a girl who liked bugs, collected and preserved them, and read entomology books. It broke my heart when I would show another kid a bug and tell them about its cool abilities, and they'd smack it out of my hand and stomp on it. The hate for bugs is one thing I never understood, and it's been breaking my heart since I was a little girl.
This! It really was and is heartbreaking to see how much has already been lost and the rates at which we've been losing them. Just animals in general being lost in such numbers is horrifyingly sad
Related: Boys, Bugs, and Men by Paris Paloma
I still like bugs other people didn't though 😔
In the actual psychological explanation of why people inherently hate insects is because there are marker of disease and decay
"I'm doing my part!"
-your classmates, probably
You can't expect people to care about something just because you do. I would have thought yo ass was weird too
When I was a kid in the 90s, we drove about 1000 km to France for our summer holidays every year. By the time we arrived, our car was black with dead insects. Last year, for the first time in a long time, I did two trips of similar lengths (one to France). Both times, there were dead insects on the car, yes, but shockingly few. Not remotely comparable to back then.
Recently, I talked to my grandma. Her and my grandpa used to drive to the tennis club every day in summer in the seventies. That‘s a 3 km trip. They had to clean their car every few days because of all the dead insects.
The disappearance of the insects is an apocalypse-level threat to us because it is tied so closely to our food production, and most people haven‘t even heard about it. Please, educate those around you about it!
Some 20 years back, as a lil child in Germany, I couldnt help but notice how after a long car ride the windshield got filled with different insects. Some werent too damaged so I was curious about getting to see a variety of insects. Curious child mind eh? :')
Nowadays I drive a lot for work, after weeks of driving there's still only a few insects on there.
We are screwed, aren't we?
@@__-tp4tmTotally screwed. In our lifetime we will already start to feel the need of bugs. But future generations are almost doomed.
@@Random__Dude. Existence never was that much fun to look forward to :D
Humanity proves itself a fatal disease for all life I think.
It’s humanity fault as a whole. It’s humanity’s fault that we’ve allowed bureaucracy and corporations to poison the planet. It’s humanity’s fault that WE as a people are incapable of banning together to FORCE a change.
Humanity will soon reap what they’ve sowed, both the elite for placing greed above humanity and us the regular people for not doing shit about it.
Why? So they can live the remainder of their years in fear?
In Germany, people are asked to let their gardens grow wild grass and wild flowers, as insects need them for food. It has also become popular to have an "insect hotel" - a (typically wooden) board with holes, where insects can hide and breed - in your garden.
Folks in the US are also encouraged to do so... except there are actually laws against it, which are strictly enforced. It sucks.
@@RowanBriar In Germany it is actually the other way around. More and more laws and local ordinances FORBID certain types of lawns and gardens, like for example stone gardens, as it is bad for nature.
@@m.h.6470 I wish it were like that here. We rarely mow are yard and have so many natural flowers, bugs, and birds as a result. I wish it were more enforced. I haven’t seen many ticks but we also have a decent skunk, raccoon, and opossum population, they eat ticks
Shame they got rid of their nuclear power plants.
Insect hotels aren't great. They tend to concentrate too many individuals close together and promote the spread of pathogens. Also, the kind of bugs they provide house for aren't the ones that need help the most...
In school I was taught that without insects, plant pollinators, the food chain will be broken. As a kid I observed birds, plants and insects. Fireflies have been nearly gone from my hometown for decades. You can see a few now when you used to avoid clouds of them.
This has gotten ridiculous lately.
Yes in Indonesia we have many forests
21 year's ago as a child, I see fireflies regularly on my hometown village
Now my villages hometown more developed
I never see them again 😢
I used to catch lighting bugs up at our cabin as a kid. I never see them anymore. Same for monarch butterflies. I rarely see one and when i was a kid I'd see hundreds of them.
One concern I didn't see is light pollution. Even places like rural Idaho have artificial light visible almost anywhere you look unless you go in a mountain valley. Any city is so saturated with light, it's nearly impossible to see any stars at night. Every one of us has seen how artificial light ruins insects navigation, and some predators like tree frogs and spiders are happy to take advantage of an easy food source. Most of my neighbors leave outdoor lights on throughout the night. I think artificial light must be having severe negative impacts.
It's very bad for birds, bugs certainly won't be unaffected :/
yes it is a big part of the problem we don't think about, AND is the easiest to reverse. Just with the flip of a switch.
It's mostly that they run out of food & some larger states go down all the roads & do systematic bug spraying for mosquitoes (which, honestly, feels like it doesn't work all that well), but if you stock up a little patch of woodland or grassland with as many native species as you can fit, you'll see a huge increase in caterpillars, moths/ butterflies, spiders, ants, flies, wasps & bees & the annoying ones will be better fed, so they'll swarm at you less & the levels of insects & kinds of insects will fluctuate throughout the year, with frogs & birds eating the bigger ones.
@@halfwen4575 Bugs definitely are affected by artificial light. Anything that relies on the sun is.
My brothers outside porch light has so many bugs in it that there's hardly any light coming through anymore.
@@halfwen4575 it fucks with moths a lot for example, moths aren't attracted to light they use light for a sense of up and down. Artificial lights basically trap them in place cuz it confuses them since at night they rely on moonlight. A lot of insects use this kind of navigation and get fucked
I saw a front yard in my small city that hadn´t been mowed all the time, there was 10 times more butterflies and bumblebees buzzing around, it was beautiful.
I can imagine one of the reasons the population is decreasing is they don´t have any food.
Leave something for them to eat, cities have vast fields of grass that is cut for no reason, no one even walks on that
Biggest reason seems to be loss of habitat and poisoning be insecticide, both of which could be helped with what you said
Guerilla planting is what is happening in Germany in spots. People are sowing wild flower mixes in public places.
@@HansJuergen-ps8bt This need to be globalised
Giant monoculture fields, insecticides, lawn mowed so much it dies in summer heat and sometimes it's replaced with concrete. They are ways to mitigate the issue, but it's a "long-distance" race. More flowers, less mowing, insect houses or said guerilla planting are just a start. Dog owners (fear of ticks in tall grass), concrete lobby and farmers not wanting to loose some short-term profit to "EU eco-regulations" are often against these efforts.
@@PaulZyCZ they were allowed to block streets to bring down the law about reducing pesticides usage, yet suddenly when climate protesters block roads a bunch of laws are passed forbidding it, it's beyond a long distance race, this is a several year marathon with people shooting at you for running it
Why's it always have to be the good ones that go extinct? Butterflies are dying out rapidly, but over a dozen mosquitos came into the house when my best friend opened the kitchen door to let some heat out last night. Bees are struggling, but ticks are spreading to more and more places and becoming more dangerous as they do so. It sucks.
I'd imagine it has to do with the "nuisance" species being nuisances because of the fact that they are so adapted to living among humans and consuming our food/blood and living in and around our homes.
It's probably because all of them are important and dying you just don't notice when one that negatively affects you dies.
Parasites have to feed more on humans when every other animal they eat is dead
all are dying out. Bees are not struggling, native bees yes. But invasive honey bees are thriving because people put in the effort (a bad effort and i am sure we will see the negative consequences of that)
However why you might be noticing this is because of a massive decrease in bats, and OTHER insects like spiders. Which are not controlling their population to the necessary extent.
Bees aren't struggling. Just the ones we like. Anthropoegotism.
I've realized that in the years passing the number of insects is drastically declining. I remember back in 2004, stag beetles would fly around my very city from late June to early August. The flowers of the garden were full of giant black carpenter bees with beautiful metallic blue wings and beautiful palm sized butterflies, and cicadas would even sit around cars. And mantises of all species (religiosa, ameles, empusa etc) would show up at night chasing moths mid air while randomly notching bats or freefalling when the bats were close. Going to the mountains near my city was like going to Insectopia, every square meter of the area had a bunch of interesting bugs.
Now it's 2024 and everything is empty, I went to the mountains that were two hours away by car to see if the ecosystem there persisted and there was nothing to see. Not even stag beetles. I was a fool for thinking the plague lockdown would heal nature.
I used to have to buy specific "bug wash" washer fluid a few times a year due to all of the splatters while driving and now I don't even think about it because I never run out of washer fluid between regular servicing and they just top it off.
On top of that, my back yard used to be swarming with slugs in the summer. Ew, gross, I know but they are noticeably much fewer than when I was younger. Same with moths and butterflies. But the BIG difference is the cicadas. They used to be deafeningly loud here on Long Island in the summers and would be littering the ground by the time autumn came. Now there are so few!
When I was a kid in the 80s, there was *always* a bug within reach, all kinds. I have fond memories of my grandpa teaching me about different critters we saw. He eventually got me a butterfly catching net so I could catch and bring over what I found for a quick lesson.
I haven't seen a butterfly in years.The last Bee I saw was 6-8 years ago. And most telling of all, I haven't been bitten by mosquitoes in over a decade, I haven't even heard or seen them, and I used to be a prime target.
City dwelling gen B will never experience those things, and the thought just put a lump in my throat.
I haven’t seen a slug since preschool. lowkey terrifying
Man I'm only 20 and I remember as a child how much I hated those Skeeters, get tons of bites every summer from them and the horse flies too. I live in a city but it's an area with a lot of park including pretty much the biggest urban wildlife area in all of Canada, right across my road, which naturally I spent tons of time in as a child. Nowadays if I go out to the park with my dog I get a few skeeter bites. Hardly seen a horsefly in the city for years, thank God. It's so much less than before.
Bees are doing ok in my area. I make sure to plant a lot of flowers for them. One of my favorite weed smoking spots is currently unsuitable due to a thriving bee hive (it's under a public veranda). Plus I saw a big ass one in the big park the other day, it was at least the size of a bowling ball. Butterflies are definitely fewer than before although moths are doing ok I think. @@VikingTeddy
@@VikingTeddywhere the hell do you live ya lucky dawg? We get swarmed by everything constantly down in Louisiana I promise 😭 the butterflies, bees, WASPS, mosquitoes, are very much real down here 💀💀
Butterflies..I actually forgot they exist, that's how long it's been since I've seen one. They used to be everywhere, very sad.
LETS DO THIS! "Where have all the bugs gone?"
Apparently to my backyard during spring
There used to be a lot more and it poses a real issue to our ecosystems. Germany had a long term study running at least from the 90s on, might have been earlier. We have lost 80% of insect biomass compared to the start of collecting and weighing. These boxes were in protected habitat areas as well. It is really bad.
And the crazy Democrats are eating them too.
Well, the insane Democrats are eating them too.
Even over here in the UK we are seeing a lot fewer bugs. Butterflies, red ants, blood ants, bees hell even wasps.
My car still gets covered. WEF wants us to eat the bugs!
I remember there was a documentary that mentioned a Chinese village that killed off the majority of their pollinators so now every spring they have to manually gather the pollen and then pollinate the flowers by hand in order to keep up the pear production the region is known for.
I remember that story. The scariest part is that wasn't even recent. I saw that story in a PBS episode of NOVA in 2008. That was about 16 years ago, and I'm sure it's only gotten worse.
I'm not doubting the story but I'm confused, surely other insects would move in and pollinate? Maybe there was a very specific pollinator that those plants needed?
@@HuckleberryHim looked into it and it was a documentary about bees and what happens when an area kills off all their bees. The trees can still get wind and bird pollination, but the rate is way too slow to make sure that the harvest will meet the minimum required yield.
@@DM-kl4em that's where I saw it. It was a warning about how a world without bees would look. China has little to no regulation for pesticides so there's likely to be multiple towns that have to do this now a days.
Sparrows during the four pests movement: "First time?"
Years ago, I participated in a national butterfly counting campaign in my country, it was shocking to see the low count and diversity. I am usually carefully observing insects on my walks, and I have discovered some rare species again that were pretty common when I was a kid. The root causes are practically not difficult to identify, they are literally within sight. But people prefer to blame wind turbines instead. With these types of people around, I fear that insect populations will never recover.
I used to live in a house with several pollinator plants in the yard, and we saw tons of butterflies, bees, moths, etc. Of all different species. I used to play in the yard by catching and releasing them. But over the years, we saw less and less, and the ones we did see became mostly just honeybees and monarch butterflies on migration. Even the native butterflies we raised for years all died out one year from a frost following a heatwave in early spring that caused them to break dormancy early...
My mother then decided to increase the property value by cutting down the "overgrown" butterfly bush, and while I protested, she always gets her way. We more or less stopped seeing any bugs after that and it was very sad.
Usually when I travel I look for places that have a diverse wildlife so I can rest. I've seen a firefly for the first time when I turned 30, traveling to mountains in brasil, I saw 2... this is sad
@@Randominternetstranger-k6cthey're called 'narc moms' and this is their legacy.
@@HaveCarapace Good to know.
I was having one of "those" drunk fix the world conversations with my friends last year and mentioned off the cuff isnt it funny how you never have to clean bugs off your motorbike helmet or the front of you car... And the more I've thought about it ever since i realised the scale of the problem. Thank you for shining a light on this, ive neen creating log stacks and bug hotels around my garden all year but everyone thinks I've lost the plot
I appreciate you and your efforts. I hope you dig further into why this is happening and join organizations fighting the political/economic system dominating the planet currently
@@kx7500 Yes, we do need more people against Globalism
I'm seeing flowers in my garden go unpollinated, there's fewer bugs each summer, and it's absolutely terrifying to consider.
your girlfriend hates bugs
@@President_NotSure she also hates not being alive.
It was pretty creepy when I noticed my yard was the only one in the neighborhood with lightning bugs. I remember as a kid they just lit up EVERYWHERE. I guess not spraying crap on your yard and leaving little wild places makes a difference, eh?
We used to be plagued by wolf spiders, every year. This year, I've seen three. And one of those was dead.
We used to empty the light fittings in the bathroom because they were full of dead moths. There's nothing there, now.
Yup we used to have that also
3 to many, i would say.
they must all be living at my house
@@scottyee707 😄
Ive been going around all the discord servers I'm active in and opening up bug channels for people to post pictures of any bugs they find that they dont know much about. Funny how much more I appreciate the little guys when I document and research every new friend I find. It's also good to know what the native species are and what the invasive species are in my local ecosystem. Always on the lookout for more bug nerd friends.
Good idea
(me when I post pictures of moth plush in a discord with the link moth - a discord about roblox games)
Kyle was just banned from the Insect subreddit after this video.
@@Ninja_From_Fortnitehe was banned from the nuclear subreddit. This is a joke
got a link or a source for that?
@@Ninja_From_Fortnite Does anything on Reddit make sense is the real question.
😂
@@Ninja_From_Fortnite lol. I didn't know the context
I live in Florida. They just straight up drive around neighborhoods and broadcast spray pesticides around here indiscriminately. It’s kinda horrifying.
That explains a lot.
Ngl that sound be fucking illegal but eh it’s Florida not even surprising
@@Yummibear7 they do it in a lot of places, it's a way to fight mosquito borne diseases.
@@vivigesso3756what point are you making here? Water is a chemical and so are pesticides, but if you drink pesticides it won’t end well for you, unlike water. That’s like if someone said “hey you shouldn’t shoot mustard gas shells at civilians” and someone responded “so? Air is a gas too.” Water doesn’t harm bugs or their populations, pesticides are designed to. Stupid ass argument my guy.
@@vivigesso3756so is cyanide? Your point?
35 years ago in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, once a pool of water forms from rain in summer, there would be a whole ecosystem of underwater bug population, within a few days. In the last 15 years or so, I don't see bugs in still water anymore. Air and soil pollution is ungodly severe in the city.
On the upside, Mongolia is very big and sparsely populated, full of untouched wilderness. Many people there are also well adapted to surviving in a very hostile climate, especially the nomad tribes that still exist in some parts. So while it is one of the countries that are most severely impacted by climate change right now, it's also one of the places that are most likely to survive it long term. Was actually considering relocating to Mongolia because of that.
@@daniel4647 Yeah, Mongolia also has plenty of underground water reserve. Combined with its sparse population, potable water will never likely become an issue.
As an avid gardener, I noticed a significant decrease in seed pods (secondary effects from pollination) formed by my plants over the last 10 years. I've since installed native bee habitats (fancy boxes with cotton to make a hive- note honeybees are terrible for the environment, please don't get an apiary box if you do not live where they are native) and have seen an increase in the amount of produced.
For anyone struggling with pollination you can do it by hand with larger flowers and a qtip with smaller ones. For self fertile flowers like tomatoes I like keeping an electric toothbrush and just touching it to the flowers to vibrate the pollen like a bumblebee would do.
@@Falcodrin I also breed flowers specifically and do this myself anyways. I'm just mentioning it as a secondary effect of seeing a reduction in pollinators in flowers I don't manually pollinate.
Get illegals a one day pass to fetilize flowers. Charge 50% they make day and a 25% border fee. Profit.
Yes, I really 'should' do something for the native bees. We used to have several types of Solitary bee and at least 4 types of Bumble.
These have reduced very significantly - but on the plus side, I noticed 2 new flying insects that 'I think' might be some type of Solitary bee.
It's the right shape, but has a blue upper body and a copper bottom. Never seen anything like it before, can't find it on any IDs.
Seen 2 in the garden lately. The only thing that worries me is they have got here on imported plants or fruit.
Here are some things you can do to help insects/your environment:
1. Use iNaturalist/learn to ID species.
2. Help remove invasive plant species. Talk to your local parks/nature reserves.
3. Plant LOCALLY INDIGENOUS species, which supports locally indigenous creatures. Talk to reserves or specialized nurseries that have wild plants.
All the best with your restoration work, much love from the Cape Flats Sand Fynbos region 🌼🇿🇦🌍
Also more bird feeders should let them hunt less >_
@halfwen4575 you actually want to get to a point where both insect and seed eaters occupy your area. It is wonderful to see how nature can come back to restored spaces.
A few nights ago I was walking my dog and noticed a street lamp, looking closer there was only ONE bug around it…one. I remember beeing young and night time was full of every type of insect buzzing around street lamps.
I don’t know what my kids will see but its an understatement to say its worrying.
"kids will see", see, there's the problem.
We're overbreeding. Full stop.
Yes, developed nations are leveling off, but 3rd world places are still breeding way way too much.
LED lights emit different light than old school incandescent bulbs, so bugs are much less attracted to them.
@@na195097 And the yellow tinted sodium lights in many cities were installed specifically because they don't attract the bugs.
@@G2_Shane thank you. I couldn't remember the name of those and couldn't be bothered to go find it. I could only think of mercury vapor lamps, but those were the bulbs in my school gym that we always broke playing kickball. lol
"Beeing young"... I see what you did there! 🐝
Hey Kyle. As an entomologist myself and president of the Colombian Entomological Society I just wanted to thank you for making this bug awareness video!
i havent checked in on this channel in months, i feel i have an interesting backlog to procrastinate my last day exam cramming to.
Watch every single video you missed and you'll be perfectly prepared for your exam I promise
Perfect study guide
@kylehill im sure ill find tons of computer engineering information 👍
To bad they are studying homeopathic medicine....
Thanks for this. I was having a pretty good week, but now my despair and anxiety have returned. Yay
Ditto
I believe the most important thing that needs to be changed is the way insects are portrayed. Since bugs are always shown as icky critters (even in this video, despite having a cute Rosy Maple Moth on the thumbnail, nothing is said to prove that insects can be cute, in fact, quite the opposite is done), this becomes the general opinion in people's heads as they grow up, despite the fact that most children find bugs adorable. Moreover, there're lots of bugs that are considered cute, e.g. mantises or butterflies, because of their positive media portrayal. Another perfect example is hummingbirds and hummingbird moths: despite looking practically the same, one is popular and "cute", while the other is "icky", solely because one is bird and other is bug. That being said, I believe we are in big need of more media pieces showing bugs as cute and educating people about them. "Hollow Knight" actually does a pretty good job at it. If people start having a positive opinion about insects, more will become aware of the problems our ecosystem is facing, and that by default will make a huge difference.
Here're some cute overlooked bugs:
Sphinx moths, Saturniid moths, Weevils, Katydids, Isopods, Cicadas, the list just goes on...
Jumping spiders, tarantulas, dubia cockroaches... like you said, the list goes on :)
@@kyokoyumi Your sarcasm makes the point that cuteness is *not* subjective, because those bugs must definitely be considered not cute. I hope you realize how blatantly wrong that is. What is considered cute vs ugly vs icky is wildly different across cultures for exactly that reason -- it's subjective and learned. Why would you push back against changing the learned behavior we're teaching into something less likely to destroy the planet?
Weevils are not cute
@@dismalthoughtsI was under the impression that cuteness isn’t entirely a learned behavior. Doing a quick search online I see plenty of researchers citing a “nurturing instinct” and not a learned behavior.
@@indescribableemptiness4104 That's totally fair :) As with most (if not all) cognitive processes, there's likely a combination of nature and nurture at play. Learned + innate. Even so, there are few - if any - innate thought patterns and perspectives that cannot be overcome by learning. Regardless of whether you think a distaste for cockroaches is more innate or learned, I don't understand the reasoning for pushing back against shifting public perception of bugs in a way that helps prevent the complete disintegration of the entire global ecosystem. Seems an odd stance to take.
Kyle, your last mention for bug death was pesticide, which i think does a huge disservice to the impact. The commercial farming industry has ruined untold numbers of species already. We now have plants that people put in their yard that pollinators won't even touch. I've seen it first hand where i planted something in my vegetable garden that was supposedly "heirloom" (summer squash) that produced nothing. I watched everything from butterflies to hummingbirds, completely avoiding the male parts of the flowers. I had to manually pollinate it, which made my wife angry/envous.
We have a real problem, and it's being ignored.
I can't take this serious. Why would manually pollinating flowers make your wife jealous 😂😂😂
Can we not have another apocalypse FOR FIVE EFFING MINUTES!
We could if we stopped electing willfully ignorant leaders from all side
It's just one long slow one I'm afraid.
You see, that's the best part! It's not "another" apocalypse. There all part of the same one! And all caused by us! Isn't it fun! Right? Right?!
Can we stop using fossil fuels, electricity, mining, and voluntarily decide to stop human population growth by severely limiting the number of children each person can have?
Yeah I didn’t think so.
@@scaper8 smooth brains can't comprehend the thought of Something longer than 30 seconds...
As a kid, i lived in a peripheral area of monarch migration, and there were hundreds all summer long. Now, i live in a much more mainstream migration area, and last summer i saw two. I haven't seen any this summer. I'm going to talk with my landlord about setting up a wildflower garden with milkweed in the side yard, so maybe we can see more next summer. He sprayed the yard last year to knock down dandelions, but it took out the clover too. I convinced him to not spray this year, and have been letting the grass grow a little taller so the clover flowers and feeds the bees.
Dandelions are early bloomers and often offer the first food sources waking bees can find. Maybe you can convince your landlord to postpone treating for dandelions until other blooms are available just as a matter of course. Good luck on your butterfly sanctuary.
You're a wonderful person for that, big ups man. Thank you
Being someone who raises moths as a hobby and has a great love for them, this is something that really scares me. :(
Do you have a basket and lotion by any chance?
@@Seldomheardaboutdo you need to get the hose again
rosy maple moth friends need to be protected
.. and, of course, once the insects go, so do the birds. That's when humans disappear. Humans need birds.
I feel the same way about P metallica tarantulas
Ive been saying this for the last 20 or so years. Growing up in the 80s and 90s summers were always marked with the lighting up of my backyard and wooded areas I played at night with the green glow of lightning bugs. Bees and butterflies would be everywhere during the day and I really can't remember the last time I have seen a bumblebee. Now its almost as rare to see a butterfly as it is to see a rainbow. We used to have a song about lady bugs that encouraged them to fly away home to take care of their children, where have they all gone? It sickens me that most humanity pats itself on the back for the "progress" we've made in technology, food production, comfortability etc ect, when all we've really done is destroy this wonderful earth we've been gifted. Not that I don't absolutely love the gift of life, its just that the beauty of it all is more than just having more things and acquiring more likes. So few humans seem incapable of viewing the entirity of this wonderful place called Earth as something we should protect rather than exploit. IMHO we're about to see a collapse in all life, including humans, due to our reckless nature and exploitation of all the beauty we were gifted. Hopefully the aliens that come here in the millenia after we're all gone can do a better job at preserving what is left, as long as we dont ruin it entirely before then.
I remember seeing a tinfoil hat 4chan post asking where all the bugs have gone--talking about how many bugs there were when they were younger compared to now. It's scary to see its unfortunately a real thing
I also remember the way winter was back then... Where I'm from (Iowa) once it snowed the ground stayed covered in snow until spring.. it didn't melt in less than a week..
I remember that same post. Saw it a few days on ifunny. Immediately thought of that
When I was a child, you could not go anywhere without driving through actual clouds of insects of all kinds. Now I can’t remember the last time I saw a cloud of any insect that wasn’t around a corpse, a hive or a street lamp at midnight
My wife and I drove from Colorado to Illinois and were talking about how few bugs were on our windshield. Glad you are doing your part to raise awareness.
We were visited by a pest control salesman and I convinced my roommates to not invest even though we have a lot of insects around. We have many slugs, bees, earwigs, rolley polis, earthworms, moths, krickets, mosquitos (I hate them but they’re essential), many birds that feed on everything, ants, etc. It’s a thriving ecosystem. It was funny. The salesman tried to pose the spiders, mosquitos, wasps, etc as a bad thing and after every bug he’d list I’d be like “They’re a non issue for us” dude seemed defeated lol
The windshield phenomenon still exists for truck drivers because our vehicles are not as aerodynamic. That's the whole thing. Vehicles are becoming so aerodynamic that the actual surface area facing forward has been reduced so much.
My suburban house has a explosion of earwigs, wasps, Oriental roaches and ants this year. Cyflythrin 6.0% solved 90% of that problem. I spray better then those idiots at orkin.
I suppose the good news, inasmuch that there is good news, is that insects and invertebrates can bounce back super quickly once the pressure is off. We had the same lack of bugs on the windshield problem, then a bunch of local farmers went certified organic, and now the first three miles of any trip out of town are caking the the car in bugs again. Sure, it is only a three mile radius around one single town, an oasis in a green desert, but it is proof that if we just ease up even a little then they can bounce back. We just have to work out how to ease up.
Hell yeah, man! We can do this, it only takes someone to take the first step! 🔥😉
Ya its hard, because there is a general need to control mosquitos, but my county started doing mass spraying for mosquitos and it decimated the fireflies too. A lot of bugs that are pests overlap with helpful bugs, and generally spraying kills both. And pivoting to organic farming will inflate food production resource needs and costs to a degree that most of the world can bear right now. As with climate change, we have basically dug ourselves into a hole of efficiency where we have to hurt ourselves to bring about any positive change for the world around us.
@@vivigesso3756 out of curiosity, why do you think that the GOP, the party which is economically focused on loosening restrictions and giving private interests free reign on the economy, which also constantly says the left is sensationalizing climate change, would be inclined to rush to fix this?
A lot of the issues could be solved if we pass better enviormental standards for cooperations, and make sure they actually follow it. Placing the issue on individuals has been a deliberate tactic to obscure the fact that it's always been them polluting. What people do in their personal lives is a drop in the bucket.
Yes!! For my life I’ve seen bugs disappear down to minuscule last year, but this year for some reason there are so many bugs in my yard! Even a new species I’ve never seen before!! I don’t know what my city is doing right, but I hope they keep doing it!
Every day it's looking more and more like "My retirement plan is societal collapse" is less of a joke, and more of a legitimate strategy.
Why robot for the oppressors when the future is everything but guaranteed?
When we go exticnt it’s gonna be on all of us (for sure more on some than most, but still, on all of us). Not only on the exploiters who destory nature but also on the exploited masses who keep working.
Your retirement strat should be feck the system now not later.
@@azpont7275you’re right, but it’s not easy to get enough people on board to truly change anything. Everyone would need to agree to a nationwide strike. And they’ve got us pretty good. I don’t know anyone willing to trade their small temporary comforts for the potential at something better. Cassandra screaming from the mountain top, doomed to prophecy’s that no one will heed.
I’m at point where I’m about to pull a Lorax and start protesting like a crazy person.
Ha, bold of you to assume we will live to retirement age, let alone not work until we're stuffed into the pine box.
@@radiantmarshmallow2527 You'll die at your desk lol
Well duh
I can remember a time when street lights barely shined because there were so many bugs on them. My elementary school was COVERED in millions of caterpillars one year, early 90s. The front of every car was layered in love bugs.
I also see a fraction of the frogs i used to see.
I read about this 6th mass extinction back in 2007 when I first started college. Crazy how many people are just now finding out about it, 17 years later
Because it’s still highly contentious within the bio-envr community. Only half of the equation is being spoken about in this video; new species may be emerging as fast as they are disappearing. We simply don’t know
If we are currently observing losses of species, then we are likely about to enter, or are already in, a responding period of massive speciation. We are not destroying the planet; we are adjusting environments to fit our needs, and thus the species that inhabit these environments.
Nevermind that a ‘mass extinction’ event requires at least 75% of all species to go extinct.. we are nowhere near this number. We are somewhere around 5%. That such a claim is suggested in the classroom is probably not helpful to the students trying to better understand the world around them
This video isn't clickbait. I've noticed a drastic reduction in insects over the past 20 years. I used to see butterflies everywhere, now its rare to see a couple. Monarchs in particular, as mentioned in this video have all but vanished in my area when i used to run through fields of them. Same thing goes for bees, they are dying at an alarming rate. Without kept bee hives i doubt i would be seeing any bees in my area.
This is why places have to ban certain pesticides after they start killing off all the bees
me too! I remember being a kid catching monarchs and swallowtails right across the street from me at a park. they were everywhere! same with huge dragonflies, horseflies and the such. now I cant remember the last time I saw ANY of those bugs. same with hearing cicadas, used to almost be the sound of summer near me, have heard one in my town in recent memory
@@alexwolff9395
You make a good point about the Cicadas. This year's Cicada season was unusually short. They were gone almost as soon as they came.
The bee movie is real
You can think more housing developments and housing subdivisions being built especially in the us, and especially in north as one of the biggest reasons for that too….
Little fun fact, on the planet earth there's a whoping 7 QUADRILLION ANTS alone, that's not considering every other bug. That number is close to 10 QUINTILLION
(Edit: also, did anyone else see Godzilla in the background at 5:10?)
(Edit 2: also, omg Kyle saw this! That absolutely made my day, and also, I labeled the timestamp wrong, sorry)
(Edit 3: I forgot to write part of this, I meant to say 10, not 20, sorry for the confusion, It was a typo)
i think biomass numbers help describe how huge various populations are, IMO. Interestingly, by that metric there appears to be 5 times as much human meat as there is ant meat.
Earth defense is looking scarier now😂😂
sadly, ants are pretty lousy pollinators.
Lets go ants Pog
Yep, all the ants on earth weight more than all the humans
Jeremy Clarkson mentioned this phenomenon on his Farm show. To respond to this, he let specific areas of his farm to wild and be untouched. Along with cutting down specific trees in forests to allow sunlight to reach the floor to let flowers flourish and insect populations flourish.
To take a car journalist to state that with the extinction of insect species would lead to all life on earth to end, I have mixed feelings. That it takes a media personality over a literal scientist to voice this is wild.
Sadly probably more people listened to Clarkson than if it would have been a scientist in which case they would have called it scaremongering ecoterrorism or something of the sort, I reckon in the end having a guy that "doesn't take the ecofascists attempts to control us seriously" might help change the opinion of some groups who see the issue as a matter of opinion
This is why science communication is so critical. It doesn't matter if they're right if no one will listen.
I'm in Mexico City. 30 years ago it was so common to see ladybugs, multipeds, worms, snails, crickets, and all kinds of bugs all the time. Now, every time I see a ladybug it's an event. Someone (we all know who) is slowly killing us all.
I didn't think I would be angry crying for bugs today.
I've been saying the same thing about birds for thirty years.
When I was little, birds were everywhere. I couldn't look up in the sky without seeing them fly, and you couldn't wake up or walk anywhere without hearing them sing. They were everywhere.
Now I don't see many ever. Like 1/1000 of what I did when I was a kid
Set up feeders to support the few that remain, attracting insects will help some too perhaps
@@halfwen4575 my 66-year-old neighbor next door has an entire backyard dedicated to feeding the neighborhood wildlife. She's the only reason that I know birds still exist 😂 in a town of over 100,000, she makes them show up
Main reason house cats
@@suarez6969 it is a big one, I saw several things on that. It's wild.
@@theyearwas1473 yeah, it's actually insane how many critters they can kill.
Less insects equals less on the food chain for bigger creatures. It causes more scarcity and deprivation for all life forms and ecosystems. Climate Collapse is happening in real time.
Can’t wait for it
We already have this in Slovakia. Europe is warming 3 times faster than rest of the world. We had no mosquitos ever, now we have plenty but ever other bug is gone. Im fisherman and when i was little there were abundance of fish and there were tons of bugs under every rock in the water, now there are barely any. Stupid fishermen in my area cant comprehend why there are no fish in rivers when we stock thousands upon thousands every year. There is simply nothing to eat for them but they blame everything else. Everyone is just dumb.
@@mamamia5668the point, youve seemed to miss, is you dont have to wait. its happening and we are at fault
@@ladmad9196how are we at fault? i didn't do anything to contribute to the genocide of bugs. And I don't have the means to revive their population either. Blame the massive water-polluting environment-destroying corporations
@@CanyonF Yeah, despite being pushed to make changes at home or as a singular person it doesn't matter nearly as much as if corporations actually started caring for the enviroment
I went to mexico recently for vacation. On one of the days there, I saw a firefly by our door. Keep in mind I hadn't seen a single one there in about 10 years, when I was still a kid. It's honestly really sad to think about how I would spend hours outside watching them
I have a spider who lives in my car. He showed up one day and I just accepted him. I've named him Steven. He makes very nice webs
LOL same
I panicked & almost drove straight into oncoming traffic once when I saw a spider repel down from my ceiling into my lap. Lol
If you see eggs in your car as well, it very well could be a mother spider actually.
@@KatyaAbc575 a whole family of Stevens
I just can't... It's either me or the spider.
Kyle, for a few years now i have been heavily invested in learning and taking care of insects around me, i take pictures and identify them whenever i can. Thank you for bringing this topic to more people.
OMG I’ve just watched some videos from Planet Wild and I am blown away! They just got a new supporter. It’s been a while I did not feel sooo good about paying for something! 😅
Amazing! What's your favourite?
I've loved bugs all of my life and earnestly hope that people can recognize how incredible and important they truly are. Every time somebody posts a cool bug image and people reply with "WHERE'S THE FLAMETHROWER" a little piece of me dies... that's not how you talk about any animal on this earth. They all deserve life, and we all deserve to do our part and protect them.
Fr fr. Boutta start going on their own account pages and comment "WHERE'S THE FLAMETHROWER" on a picture of their dog the next time I see that shit happen. I mean I probably actually won't, but wouldn't that be an interesting conversation? Honestly though I've noticed a huge shift lately in the way the general public views bugs. I see 75% less flamethrower comments on bug pics than I did 5 or so years ago. I really hope to see more and more people continue to advocate for our little pals, and that they continue still to gain more and more popularity.
No but seriously where's the flamethrower lol
@@ZebrasAreAwesome011ironically I have already had many people online say that about my dogs (pitbulls). There are entire subreddits dedicated to to wishing death upon dogs like mine.
Phil: *Vibing*
Kyle: Unacceptable. 😠
HE'S TOO HOT IT'S NOT FAIR
@@kylehill It's okay, you have the hair.
@@kylehillare you bi? I am genuinely curious.
@@kylehill Well you'd be hot too if you were in the middle of a rainforest! The man is sweating!
@@DaniOrdo who cares. Peoole should keep privates privat.
Thanks for posting Kyle and thank you for the first month free planet wild membership. I have subscribed to them. I wish I could give more per month, but I do what I can. Keep up the awesome work!
Welcome to the community! Every contribution makes a difference 🙌
As a kid I used to see Transport trucks that had driven through the Canadian Prairies.
These trucks would have 2-5 cm of bug paste and legs on the front of them.
These days the same trucks barely need a wash. No need to de-carpet during refuel.
And most of the frogs are gone as well. I had a FLIR Camera and there's almost no life in the woods either.
Ah the frogs are a different type of apocalypse, they're under attack by fungus. I recently learned about it from Lindsay Nicole's channel.
A band aid on a bullet wound. Each year the amount of CO2 that humans pour into the atmosphere increases. It does not level off. It does not go down. The four hottest days on record were like last week. The people who profit from fossil fuel use will NEVER stop of their own accord. They have known this was coming for decades and went merrily ahead. By all means try to rewild, but how long will that fragile population last as the temperatures, droughts, heatwaves, fires, and floods all steadily increase? How could they possibly adapt and thrive in a climate that changes year to year?
Seriously, people need to stop labelling bugs and other micro organisms with such negative biases. We owe it to them for allowing us to build our own mega-structures today, allowing us to understand aerodynamics, robotics, advanced maths, and so much more. Without them, humans would suffer immensely.
make sure to do your part by not using any insect repellent, bug spray and most importancely, do not squash any mosquito and tick that has attach themself on you.. also make sure to leaves food around for roaches and fly..
They play a crucial role in the food-chain too which is crucial to our survival. The points you listed are nice little bonuses to having them but aren't important in the bigger picture.
Bugs are still gross a.f.
The AntsCanada and PleaseBee channels do a lot of good work that way.
@@lennartweber1502 No, they're adorable. Look at Poodle Moths and Jumping Spiders.
8:59 "What do we do [about the extinction]?
Regular People: Spread awareness and start restoring and mitigating the damage
Companies: Profit off developing artificial, man-made solutions to the problems they cause to mother nature
Both don't really do much anyways in all fairness.
@@ordinaryrat
So true. The irony is that both need to work together. Companies provide people affordable ways to mitigate further harm while they pay back what is owed through restoration and sustainable practices.
@@MatsueMusic Really the only thing that needs to happen is for companies to focus on something other than profits and infinite growth for once. That would solve nearly all of the world's problems.
Companies don't do anything. It is the people that run them. The capitalist class that runs our entire planet, despite making up less than
@@catsnorkel We can only dream 😢
The empty lot next to my house was left uncut for months. It was FULL of bugs and it was fun to watch them darting around. They recently mowed it and it looks so lifeless over there now. Just flat grass.
That Planet Wild intro video didnt show many icky insects, but focused on cute Owls, frogs, butterflys, and Bees.
It's guilty of the same sin you had brought up about earlier. lol
i almost cried watching the beginning of this video, the sheer amount of animals that we will never know about because of our hubris, the sheer amount that will die, its a genuine tragedy and i wish more people cared as much as i do.
I’ve been following Planet Wild for a while, it’s awesome to see my favorite youtuber collaborating with them!!!
Working at a carwash in 2008 me and the Bois used to speculate about the decrease in bugs over even just a 3 year span.
Biologist here. Insects are the most critical animals that exist , they are the only ones we cannot survive without
3:05 how DARE you the water bug is a precious lad and I love them very much
Stop drinking the libtard coolaid. It's only hurts yourself..
Yeah! Look at those bright lil eyes
Thank you for this video. Not a lot of people actually talk about topics like this. They may bring them up but never delve into it. That's why you and Lindsay Nikole are my favorite science communicators on RUclips. Also just as a personal thing, I just got accepted to Oregon State for Zoology. So this just makes me even happier. Not that bugs are dieing, but that is correlates to what I'm learning and spreads awareness of the issues our planet and the species we live besides deal with. Much love and all the respect to you Kyle and other like you.
Sorry for the typos and grammer typing on a phone sucks donkey *you know what* 😂
Good luck at OSU!
@@valutaatoaofunknownelement197 thank you I appreciate that
Kyle you should do a video about how to care about apocalyptic topics like this.
With all the problems in the world right now (socially and ecological) I find it very hard to care about another civilisation ending topic like this. My brain just puts it on top of the pile until the next one is announced.
I mean I want to care about it, but it always feels like there is nothing you can do on an individual level.
Plenty we can do to help reverse the decline, I build both a pond and bug hotel in my garden, this has boosted the number of spiders, slugs, snails and flies, by proxy this attracts amphibians, mammals and birds!
In my opinion, if you want to care about it, that can be the same as caring. It’s natural to register it as concerning, but arriving at an oversaturated mind, not to feel strong urges to “do something about it”.
Regardless, we have the power to integrate small things into our value systems for the good of ourselves and our world. I believe it’s important simply to remember, cognitively, that we care, and express this in personally reasonable ways. Maybe that’s a significant change, such as eliminating pesticides/herbicides from a lifestyle and diet (ie buying organics), or learning about and participating in relevant political happenings. Maybe someone decides to treat insects they encounter with more care, promote beneficial plant/habitat growth in their own space, or bring the issue up when relevant with the people in their lives.
These examples obviously are specific, but I hope the general reasoning is applicable more widely. It’s easy to fall into apathy, so I honestly think truly caring, including exhibiting that care, is a habit that requires forming.
We can walk and chew gum at the same time. And sure things feel bleak as individuals, but just like the bugs, we can be extremely effective in large numbers...or detrimental.
human have generally not having a good record when come to fixing nature, in fact, we always tend to make thing worse in the end, just ask thousand of invasion species that we introduce trying to fix the ecosystem as the result of human activities..... mother nature has run things for million of years with no problem, worry about thing like this is just waste of energy...
There are a few ways how you can deal with them.
First of all, most of our environmental problems are quite interconnected with another (just look at the causes for this problem, they are the same as for lots of other environmental problems). So taking actions won't just address one problem.
Second, question the things you do.
You could inform about where the things you consume (food, clothes, electronic devices etc) are made and if there are more sustainable alternatives to it.
Furthermore, you can avoid things that are made to get trash rather quick. This includes stuff like plastic-wrappings for food, badly manufactured clothing or electronic devices which are impossible to repair (with those single-use vapes probably leading the list of how bad a product could be for the environment).
In conclusion, there is no definitive list of things you have to do, to count as environmentally friendly. It's more up to you to find a way which works for yourself and fits your stily of life.
I agree that we do focus more on "cute" animals for stuff like this, but I feel like the graphs at 6:44 are *slightly* misleading. Whereas, yes, we do have an almost unbelievably small *proportion* of insects assessed, if you look at what those proportions represent, you get a different picture.
The paper itself doesn't give the exact numbers it's using for insects, but going through its references I found these numbers on what's had Red List assessments:
- 11,035 of 11,147 (~99%) birds,
- 5,899 of 6,495 (~91%) mammals,
- 6,223 of ~1M (~0.6%) insects,
&c.
Technically, there are more insects assessed than mammals, and only about twice as many birds as insects. I feel like the absurd amount of insects makes looking at the proportion we have assessed a bit silly since it will always look small. Not that the *dismal* ~0.6% of them that we've assessed is enough - again, I agree that we're overly biased towards "cuter" animals, and we should definitely be putting more effort into conserving insects, especially since we've already gotten such a big portion of the other species done. I'm just too much of a pedantic nerd to not point out this minor detail, and I feel like it's a bit unfair (although not entirely unfounded) to imply that we're more-or-less completely ignoring insects when the reality is that there's no reasonable way we could have anywhere near the same proportion of them assessed as we do for other animals.
I'd also like to mention that I think the point the original paper was making with these graphs - that the Red List can't be used to deny the 6th mass extinction event - still stands. To summarize, people are looking at the Red List, seeing the amount of endangered/extinct species on it, and drawing the conclusion that, based on the percentage of such animals on the List, no mass extinction is occuring. However, the Red List is *heavily* biased towards land vertabrates, mainly birds and mammals, which aren't at all representative of all animals. The ratio of known insects to birds is ~90:1, but the ratio of their respective representation in the Red List is ~1:2 - and people are using that *very* skewed data to deny a mass extinction. I may think it's unreasonable to think that we should have similar proportions assessed of insects and other animals, but I think it's even more unreasonable to assume that a database missing ~99.4% of the biggest part of the animal kingdom is a reliable tell of whether we're in another mass extinction event.
So what I learned from this is
1) Bugs are dying and if we're lucky mosquitos are included
2) Kyle was the bug kid (at the surprise of literally no one)
3) That entomologist guy is what aliens would put in their save the environment posters if humans become an indanger species
You missed the part 4 where we and the rest of life depend upon them, for life.
sadly, roaches, mosquitoes, flies, bed bugs, and fleas are quite comfy arround us, butterflies, dragonflies, beetles, fireflies, not so much...
@@partciudgam8478 Lisent I'm cool whit the other "not charismatic" bugs but mosquitos are genetically designed to be annoying, whatever scenario leads to no mosquitos I will be 100% on board whit
@wulk Well, it seems like the mosquitos you're thinking off are not affected by destruction of natural habitats, as the blood sucking spiecies only need blood and some rotten, stagnant water with algae to develop in as larva.
You won't get lucky. The bugs that bother us the most are the ones that are best adapted to living with, on, and off of us.
One thing I've found - here in Denmark nonetheless - is that with more focus on wildgrowth, in people's backyards becoming quite popular, I see more bugs splatter across my windshield last year and even more this year. I know it's not scientific, but driving the same route that's 150km a few times a month every year for the past decade. I would actually count the bugs because back then it was a concern I had read about. I would count less than 10 bugs splattered across my screen from 2012 to 2020 - but after It's been increasing since with this summer i've had more than 100 splatter nearly every single time I've been driving that route.
So many places - across our highways, in our forests and many people let their gardens grow without being cut or have its weeds killed off and I hope it keeps going this way so we can have bugs back.
We have a “no chemical” yard and we’ve seen some incredible insects here. I worked at a one of a kind garden center that had extreme diversity and I’ve brought home a lot of different plants. Lots of butterflies on the perennial lantana and interesting predatory bugs like catydids and praying mantis on the raspberrys, bees on the bee balms. Highly recommend it to anyone that has a yard 🌸🐝
And my sister let a mob of caterpillars eat her parsley plant on her back porch, so even if you don’t have a yard you can feed the babies 🐛
I am already a contributer to Planet Wild, so I was very happy to see you promote them! It's time we do something 🌱
Awesome video. I tell my daughter all the time about how you used to see thousands of fireflies in fields driving around at night, Dozens in our small city backyards even.
Sadly some nights we don't see any at home, and on late drives home may only see a few...
I've only ever seen one firefly in my whole life and it breaks my heart, hopefully one day things will improve and the images you saw back then return
What's wild, this year I've seen dozens at a time, not as many as when I was a kid, but for the last decade I might see one the entire summer. It's been a super rainy, unusally hot summer, with a ton of storms (which isn't normal here), but I'll take the lightning bugs over the superstorm of ticks from last year
The baseline extinction rate is about one species per every one million species per year.
Current Extinction rates are about 45,000 species per every one million species per year.
If you ever wondered what it is like living during a Great Extinction Event... just look around.
I am happy you are supporting Planet Wild. I've been a member for a while now and I love their initiatives!
Kyle Hill - "100 years ago, now, in 1997..."
Me- "Steve was chopping wood!"
Just realised I'm 100 years old. Time moves so fast.
Damn so then 100 years from 1997 is 2016. I am already 200 years old. Time really does move fast when you are older. 😔😔😔😔
Thanks for raising awareness to this Kyle. My parents often told me about how there were longer many insect splatters on the windshield nowadays, and it's pretty terrifying to see why
05:15 Sonic using underwater air bubbles
Thank you so much for talking about this! I've been talking about this for years to people and very few people even see this as a problem...
I have been thinking about this so much over the past few months. I grew up in rural central Minnesota, and we would have to stop off at gas stations after an hour or two of driving to clean the windshield and headlights. Now, on my trips to the forest which are probably 4 hours of driving there are very few impacts. This year I have noticed a decline in dragonflies while I sit in the forest -- and that is with a year that has been fairly optimal for them (IMO).
I used to get swarmed by mosquitos. I'd come home from a camping trip quite literally covered in bites. Not even insect repellent could save me.
Repeating this today and I'd maybe get 10 total bites.
Extinction of mosquitos, as good as that sounds, has a knock-on effect in which the entire food chain is disrupted. Suddenly birds have no food, you no longer hear the chirping in the morning or during spring. Then comes the snakes/wild cats/squirrels/foxes etc. And before we know it, our crops start failing, our farm animals become too expensive to feed, and eventually all land animals die. The oceans would then follow suit much later.
This is serious. I would gladly go back to how it was covered in bites if it meant we could protect our cute little critters that rely on them.
Insect repellant
that's not exactly the likely chain of events
i dont see how insect life on land could ever have a significant effect on the oceans dawg. If anything insect wipeout causing food chain collapse on land would lead to a boom of ocean life as we stop destroying everything like the plague that we are.
I will say- mosquitos going extinct would be an issue. It *ALONE* will not end the world. Most insects going extinct? Would be extremely bad. Utterly horrible. Many plants and land animals would also go extinct. Maybe even humans.
Mosquitos alone won't do it, but many bugs going extinct (like what's happening now) will screw a ton up.
The mosquitos dying isn't the problem, it's how we are killing them.
i love bugs so much and i am so thankful to see a science educator with a following like yours addressing how important bugs are and how many we are losing! i’m studying to become an entomologist atm and i am always telling people about how many bugs are disappearing
Go study petrochemical. Bugs go extinct all the time. This world doesn't need more art student bums.
awkward odd laugh segment? god yes 5:05
The disgusting irony of humanity killing off, invading the homes of, and poisoning bugs off our food when we wouldn't have hardly anything at all without them. It's shocking how little we'd have. In fact, in a cynical sense like mine, it's not just bugs that are dying to a thousand cuts it's us too.
0:50 Maybe we smashed too many of them on our windshields?
Just last summer, when I forgot to close the window at night with the lights on, the ceiling was full of bugs. Now, it's practically bare.
I raise butterflies I find in orchards every year, this year there was no caterpillars to rescue. It’s the first time in 5 years I’ve not found a single caterpillar in the summer months.
We have a truck washing firm in the UK. During the summertime the front of the cabs were completely covered in dead bugs, it was a nightmare to clean, even with high pressure hot water. In the last few years we noticed that during the summer, there have been next to no bugs. We weren't complaining, but it still was worrying.
Counterpoint - as someone wo details cars - I'm still seeing a lot of bugs on all the flat vertical surfaces. There are not many on windshields but doesn't the more aerodynamically slick cars have something to do with this? Windshields are much more angled. Alternatively, our tour bus we took to Disneyland for Grad night was absolutely covered in bugs.
you have a good point there, i wonder if the study took that into account. If they are doing good science they should use the same model car for all 20 years of tests.
Former automotive engineer here (not on aerodynamics but working close to those teams). I also think of the same every time I see the windshield argument, there has been a tremendous amount of work done to improve air flows over windshields and reduce the drag, that would cause insects to roll of the windshield instead of sticking to it. That study is probably quite flawed and overstating the decline, which is a shame since it undermines the argument.
Other more scientifically sound studies have shown a significant decrease (but are probably less easy to grasp).
Did you watch the rest of the video? They looked at other methods of data collection, which also indicate a decline in insects
^ I barely get any bugs on my windshield but the ski racks on top of my car are always covered
Interesting...
As an aspiring Wildlife Conservation Undergrad Student, thank you so much for posting this and bringing more attention to our fight to preserve as much of this planet as possible for future generations. ❤
The sad thing about this is that it's always the cool bugs, mosquitos and wasps are doing just fine
Wasps are cool
Something eats those mosquitos so be glad they're still around :)
@@notreallyhere67Dragonflies! One of the coolest type of insects around !
Majority of wasps and mosquitos are pollinators though, so honestly I wouldn't be upset about that.
@@MamaLuvDuv We've got bees for that, and if we don't, we don't need those crops around. Fuck mosquitos, no exceptions.
I just wanna say. Kyle, you are my favorite and top person I go to for info. Even if you dont have all of it, you help me learn enough to find proper spots to look. You da best my guy. Stay Nerdy, and stay frosty.
I just watched the movie Legend (1985) with my kids. While arguably not the best move, one thing that struck me was the forest scenes with so much floating stuff in the air. It moved around and caught the sunlight. I realized: It was supposed to look like an (overly exaggerated) lush forest filled with insects! And I actually vaguely remember that feeling in the forests from my childhood. Nowadays when I go out in the forest and look for insects in the sunlight I am lucky if I can spot just a handful of insects...
I signed up for Planet Wild - thanks for sharing and covering the first month! Such a great organization.
Amazing! Welcome to the community ☺
Great video.
I'd have loved to see a segment showing how the animals we DO care about (ie, birds, bats, cute hedgehogs) would also be devastated.
As you pointed out, most people don't care about bugs. But they DO care about the animals that depend on bugs!
When I was little and I still do kinda, I always had a fascination with insects like I wasn’t afraid to pick up a beetle or something, I’ve always thought that they were so cool and growing up I realized how important insects truly are to everything