Without the Beetles

Why clean windshields mean bad news

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T he evolutionary biologist JBS Haldane is probably best remembered for his observation in response to a question about his religious beliefs that, if God did exist, “he had an inordinate fondness for beetles”.

Beetles are the hard-working, sensible, silent majority of the insect world – not flash like butterflies, or quasi-totalitarian like ants and termites, or mystical like bees. They like to eat, work hard, and reproduce.

Perhaps that is why there are so many: an estimated 500 million billion of them going about their business right now, divided into 380,000 named species, with 4,000 new ones added every year.

Surely, from the beetle’s perspective, all is good in the hood?

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