Lizard

• Light and sound shows in parks can enthral crowds with their colour, music and storytelling.
• But unless they are well-located, the shows can also harm wildlife.
• Research shows artificial light, sound and the presence of lots of people at night can harm wildlife.

A history of community opposition

• While they often take place along existing walking trails, they attract huge crowds at a time when animals usually have the place to themselves.
• Most of Australia’s mammals and frogs and many bird and reptile species are nocturnal, or active at night.
• Light shows proposed for other wildlife conservation areas have also faced community opposition.

Light, sounds, action!

• For example, it can change their hormone levels, and the numbers and health of their offspring.
• Light also interferes with the ability of many species to navigate.
• It masks the natural soundscape, making it harder for animals to find mates or hear the calls of their young.
• It can also mask smells vital for an animal’s survival, such as that of food and predators.

Long-term harm

• This cuts in half the time animals have to go about their life-sustaining activities and exposes them to greater risks when they do go out.
• Light and sound shows are usually temporary – but can have major long-term impacts.
• For example, males of the genus Antechinus (small marsupials) live long enough for just one short breeding season.

Find a better location

• Organisers may have minimised impacts where they can, but evidence suggests the impact on wildlife will still be extensive.
• Finding genuinely suitable locations should be done with care – and should avoid wildlife conservation areas altogether.

• Euan Ritchie receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Department of Energy, Environment, and Climate Action.
• Therésa Jones receives funding from the Australian Research Council and is affiliated with NERAL (Network for Ecological Research on Artificial Light).

• "Other Allosaurus have been found with skin impressions in the past, but ours contains skin from parts of the body yet to be preserved.
• The skin is leathery and has scales like the feet of chickens or the body of crocodiles."
• This extraordinary discovery took place during the summer of 2020 but is just now on display for the public to see at The Children's Museum.
• Over the last few years, the Allosaurus fossil was transported to Indianapolis, with different parts arriving in stages.

• Perhaps you came across one in your garden and wondered at its little hands, glossy skin and what looked very much like a contented smile.
• As our research has found, the history of human-frog relations is long and complicated – and not all of it is nice.

Why we love frogs

• There is a rich history of people really loving frogs.
• This is interesting, because many people much prefer mammals and birds over reptiles and amphibians.
• Frogs are truly among the jewels of the natural world, unlike toads which – with their more mundane colours and “warty skins” – do not usually inspire the same sense of enchantment.

Dissecting human feelings for frogs

Yet relationships between people and frogs haven’t always been so positive. In fact, frogs occupy complicated places across cultures all over the world. In the Western tradition, the legacy of biblical and classical sources was both negative and longstanding. References to frogs in the Bible rendered them the instrument of divine anger as a swarming plague.

• Frogs challenged early modern zoological taxonomies, moving between classification as serpent, insect or reptile.
• In modern science, they sit in a branch of zoology, herpetology, that brings frogs together as “creeping animals” with snakes and lizards.
• Italian scientist Luigi Galvani, for example, did experiments in the late 18th century on legs of frogs to investigate what he thought of as “animal electricity”.

• In time, experiments with frogs moved beyond the laboratory into the classroom.
• In the 1930s, schoolchildren were expected to find frogs and bring them to school for dissection in biology classes.

Recognising the fragility of frogs

• From the frogs of Aesop’s Fables to the meme Pepe the Frog, we have projected our own feelings and frustrations onto frogs, and exploited them for science and education.
• Frogs have also borne the brunt of our failures as environmental stewards.
• In 2022, over 40% of amphibian species (of which frogs and toads are by far the largest group) were threatened with extinction.

Susan Broomhall receives funding from the Australian Research Council. Andrea Gaynor receives funding from the Australian Research Council. Andy Flack does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• Every summer for almost the last 20 years, volunteers from the Kent Wildlife Trust and Buglife, both in the UK, have been tracking car number plates.
• Their inspections aim to register the numbers of flying insects hit by vehicles.
• The results of the 2022 campaign showed a reduction, over fewer than 20 years, of 64% in the number of insects hit by cars.

The sixth mass extinction

• In order to gain realistic measurements, the most rigorous research uses historical studies that track insect populations over decades.
• In Germany, a 27 year-long study was published in 2017 showing that 76% of flying insect biomass has been lost within a wide network of natural spaces.
• This study also showed a parallel decline in animals that eat insects, such as lizards, frogs and birds.

Why are there fewer insects?

• They need the ground that we cover with cement, the increasingly scarce water that we pollute or divert, and the plants that we treat with pesticides.
• Among other things, the number of airborne microscopic particles, which block their sensory organs and ways of communicating, are on the rise.
• This weakens the vital biological relationships between all living things, and in turn threatens our very existence as a species.

Why are they so important?

• It is therefore clear that they play many essential roles in sustaining life on Earth, most importantly that of pollinating plants.
• 35% of the world’s food supply comes from plants that are pollinated by insects.
• The UN Food and Agriculture Organsiation warns that if they were to disappear, food security would be at risk.

What can we do to protect them?

Large scale environmental problems cannot be solved by the actions of individuals. However, experience shows us that lots of small gestures can add up to achieve big results. Some of the things we can do are:
Support or work with projects that aim to raise awareness and protections for insects both in rural and urban areas. The aforementioned Kent Wildlife Trust and Buglife are good examples in the UK. In Spain we have the SPIPOLL project, the uBMS Citizens’ Butterfly Observatory and the Spanish Network of Biosphere Reserves’ Phenological Monitoring Programme.
Ensure that urban green spaces – as well as verges, roundabouts and other undeveloped areas – contain animal habitats and native flora which can provide breeding sites and refuge for insect species.
Refrain from using pesticides in private gardens or vegetable patches, and where possible in public green spaces. Limit the removal of “weeds” growing around ornamental plants, especially during flowering periods.
Consume food products made following good agricultural practices that value and promote organic farming and biological or integrated pest control.
Replace livestock pest control treatments with products that are not harmful to insects that help in the decomposition process.
Avoid introducing invasive plant or animal species, both in agriculture and gardening.
All of us, in particular educators, have an important responsibility to show both children and adults that insects are noble, vital and beautiful. Their declining numbers are an unprecedented problem, and our very survival as a species is at stake if we cannot reverse this trend.

• Saioa Legarrea Imizcoz carries out her research at the University of La Rioja thanks to the European Union's Next Generation funding, articulated in the María Zambrano Call (Royal Decree 289/2021 of 20 April).
• María Ángeles Marcos García receives funding to carry out Scientific Projects from the Spanish Government, Autonomous Communities and Europe in which insects are studied from different conservationist themes (pollination, pest control, decomposers...).