The French Muséum launches "Bugs matter", a programme to measure the decline of flying insects

The Muséum national d'histoire naturelle (MNHN), in France, is launching "Bugs Matter", a participatory science programme to measure the decline of flying insects, it announced on 13/04/2026.

Insects are essential to the proper functioning of ecosystems: "they contribute to soil fertility, are essential to the reproduction of flowering plants and constitute a food resource for a large number of species, particularly birds".

However, for the last twenty years or so, scientists have been warning of their decline. "Although the phenomenon has now been widely documented, estimating the abundance of flying insect populations is a real challenge", according to the MNHN.

The aim of this programme, inspired by an initiative in the UK and Ireland by the Kent Wildlife Trust and Buglife, is to appeal to the general public, and more particularly to motorists, to record insect impacts on their number plates after their journey.

The pictures, compiled via a mobile application, will make it possible to "produce comparable and scientifically usable data on a large scale".

"In the United Kingdom and…