Scientists Have Determined that World’s Birds Eat Millions of Insects

According to USA Today, scientists have determined that the world's birds eat 450 to 550 million tons of insects each year.  That's as many as 20 quadrillion individual bugs, according to a scientific study.

The study highlights the role birds play in keeping plant-eating insects under control.  Some of the most popular items on the birds' menus:  beetles, flies, ants, moths, grasshoppers and crickets.

And compared with our diets, the amount of food consumed by birds is similar to that of the human world population, which according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, consumes about 450 million tons of meat and fish a year.