In Israel, a multi-year, international insect migration study confirmed that insects migrate seasonally and that this movement constitutes the largest migration found in today’s world – a mass almost eight times that of birds that migrate from Britain to Africa. The findings clearly showed insect populations moving southward in fall and northward in spring.
Although flying insects are one of the largest populations on Earth, no comprehensive quantitative study examining the insect migration phenomenon has been undertaken until now. In order to collect data, radars were installed some 15 years ago in southern England. Data from these radars was used to estimate insect bio-flow over an area of 70,000 square kilometers. The radars measured the weight of the insects, their flight speed and their direction and altitude.
The researchers were surprised by the scale of this phenomenon – some 3.5 trillion insects, creating a biomass of 3,200 tons, migrated in each season.