Butterflies have existed on Earth for at least 200 million years, surviving extreme fluctuations in the Earth’s climate and the meteor strike that wiped out the dinosaurs. But new data from the UK’s Butterfly Conservation Trust has found half of UK butterflies now face extinction (a 24% increase of endangered species compared with 2011). This latest dataset corroborates the growing evidence for a global insect apocalypse.
Butterflies have existed on Earth for at least 200 million years, surviving extreme fluctuations in the Earth’s climate and the meteor strike that wiped out the dinosaurs. But new data from the UK’s Butterfly Conservation Trust has found half of UK butterflies now face extinction (a 24% increase of endangered species compared with 2011). This latest dataset corroborates the growing evidence for a global insect apocalypse.