Crawling by the thousand

These uninvited guests are in your Christmas tree

Hardly anyone thinks about what sits on a Christmas tree - and then there are up to 25,000 little animals ...(Bild: samunella - stock.adobe.com)

Around 2.4 million households in Austria put up a Christmas tree at Christmas time, 85 percent of the trees come from local forests. But with the firs and spruces, some uninvited guests also enter the house - up to 25,000 creepy-crawlies per tree! An expert from the Federal Research Center for Forests explains what this means for our living rooms.

The most popular Christmas tree species among Austrians are Nordmann fir (90 percent), blue spruce (five percent) and the Colorado, Rocky Mountain and Nobilis silver fir, which share the remaining five percent. Those who like traditions will not miss the opportunity to decorate the Christmas tree festively and place presents underneath it on Christmas Eve.

However, hardly anyone thinks about the fact that the fir trees in the forest naturally also serve as a habitat. The stark figures are probably a shock for all entomophobes - people who are excessively afraid of insects.