The truth is, insects in Britain are adapted to rain – they just don’t like running or flying in wet weather.
When it rains, flying (and crawling) insects shelter by roosting under leaves or logs, resting in the leaf litter, or pressing themselves down into the grass- root thatch. They resume activity as soon as the sun comes out.
British species need to be able to function in our wet, damp, cool, temperate oceanic climate – insects with a more Mediterranean range can’t survive here.
A quick look at distribution maps shows that most British insect species occur in south-east England, where it’s warmer and drier, and each has a range petering out at a zone, where the damp and cool get just too much for it to survive.
This is particularly obvious with warmth-loving bees, wasps, and ants, which need warm weather to forage and dry soils in which to nest.
