Decades ago plentiful of insects used to inhabit Germany. Wolfgang Waegele, Director, Leibniz Institute for Animal Biodiversity, Bonn says: "If you talk to people, they have a gut feeling. They remember how insects used to smash on your windscreen." This widespread experience in earlier days - the smashing of the windscreens of moving cars by insects - is called the 'windshield phenomenon' by the entomologists. As Scott Black, Executive Director, Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, Portland, Oregon recollects, when he used to drive his 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1 car in Nebraska in his teens, "I used to have to wash my car all the time. It was always covered with insects. But it is a visceral reaction when you realize you don't see that mess any more."
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