Researchers at Penn State University in the US say that squished bugs can be used to find out an area’s range of creatures.

Scientists can do this by studying the DNA taken from the bugs. DNA is found in all living creatures, and each species has a different DNA code.

To test their idea, scientists made two journeys through different areas of America. Then they took ‘splatter samples’ from the front bumper of each carThey say that they could distinguish a lot of different species from the samples, although a larger worldwide library of DNA would make the scheme more useful.