Name an animal that migrates. You might think of the long migrations of humpback whales crossing the Pacific Ocean or flocks of geese flying noisily overhead. But, did you know that huge numbers of insects make ultra-long migrations of thousands of miles almost completely unseen?
The scale is shocking: by biomass, insects outweigh the birds migrating over Britain every year eight times over. While so many eye-catching insects, from dragonflies to butterflies, migrate, it is the hoverflies that are most overlooked. Hoverflies pollinate our countryside and control garden pests as their larvae eat more than 100 aphids each.
