Flies keep landing on North Sea oil rigs
16 comments
·October 10, 2025myrmidon
I never knew that insects are capable of crossing oceans...
Seeing close-up pictures of them is always a very humbling experience to me, because it is very obvious how "huge" and complex they are in terms of individual cells. A very visceral experience of Feynmans "there is plenty of room at the bottom" notion.
rwky
Here's a paper on the painted lady migration described in the article https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-49079-2
flave
Oil Rigs seem to be, counterintuitively, very good for a bunch of species.
In the Gulf of Texas there’s been ongoing fights between environmentalists (helping species who live under and around the rigs) and environmentalists (protecting the landscape from ugly metal towers).
whazor
Can we use raw oil 100% without burning/wasting it?
How much percent recyclable plastic could we extract out of raw oil? Like real recyclable plastic, where it is worth money to do so.
Maybe making more bitumen/asphalt for roads/roofs, or graphite for batteries?
flave
My comment wasn't clear - I'm talking about abandoned rigs. So the well is sealed.
Some of the more extreme "environmentalist" (in my opinion extreme) also demand that the ocean floor near the well is scrubbed clean to 'leave no trade' which is good in theory but in practice will wipe out the fish and plant life which has grown up around it.
wodenokoto
Oil is not part of the dispute parent is talking about. Abandoned rigs provides shelter for a multitude of species and helps marine diversity. On the other hand, they are manmade structures and essentially ocean trash.
defrost
On the third hand, coral reefs are polypmade structues and essentially ocean poop and excreta.
It's not so much the manmade structures that are problematic, more the associated toxic sludges still residual within structures.
lmm
> Can we use raw oil 100% without burning/wasting it?
Burning it isn't wasting it, we get a lot of value out of that.
> How much percent recyclable plastic could we extract out of raw oil? Like real recyclable plastic, where it is worth money to do so.
0. There's no such thing as real recyclable plastic, unless you count burning it for heat/power generation.
> Maybe making more bitumen/asphalt for roads/roofs, or graphite for batteries?
Every fraction of oil has some use. But you're unlikely to get perfectly balanced demand for every single thing you can pull out of it.
pjc50
Instead of saying "wasting", OP should have said "emitting CO2 to the atmosphere", which is the real problem here. Including from refinery flare stacks, and emissions of non-CO2 GHGs like methane from leaks.
Unbalanced fractions aren't so much of a problem as they can be cracked.
Ferret7446
> Every fraction of oil has some use. But you're unlikely to get perfectly balanced demand for every single thing you can pull out of it.
Oh God not Factorio again
bcraven
Just like birds, some species of hoverfly migrate with the seasons. They move to southern Spain in the early autumn and then as far north as Norway in spring (the northern leg is less well understood, and seems to take place over several generations, since each fly only actually lives for a few weeks).
_This paragraph becomes more astonishing as it goes on_
jcattle
Same, that was the first time I've heard of this. I mean, it kind of makes sense. "Just" go where flowers bloom. But still, this seems like madness.
dvh
What is the benefit of crossing the ocean? The lands on both sides are comparable.
pjc50
Following the seasons, suggests the article. Insects are pretty temperature sensitive.
doingtheiroming
An oily Stephen Maturin.
I can't imagine the efficiency that makes such long flights possible in such a tiny form factor. Compared to our drones, it must be multiple orders of magnitude more efficient.