LOCUSTS
A plague of locusts is a devastating natural disaster. These infestations have been feared and revered throughout history. Unfortunately, they still wreak havoc today.

Locusts are related to grasshoppers and the two insects look similar. However, locust behavior can be something else entirely.

Locusts are sometimes solitary insects with lifestyles much like grasshoppers. But locusts have another behavioral phase called the gregarious phase. When environmental conditions produce many green plants and promote breeding, locusts can congregate into thick, mobile, ravenous swarms.

IMPACT ON AGRICULTURE
Locust swarms devastate crops and cause major agricultural damage and attendant human misery—famine and starvation. They occur in many parts of the world, but today locusts are most destructive in sustenance farming regions of Africa.

The desert locust (Schistocerca gregaria) is notorious. Found in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, they inhabit some 60 countries and can cover one-fifth of Earth's land surface. Desert locust plagues may threaten the economic livelihood of one-tenth of the world's humans.

A desert locust swarm can be 460 square miles in size and pack between 40 and 80 million locusts into less than half a square mile. Each locust can eat its weight in plants each day, so a swarm of such size would eat 423 million pounds of plants every day.

DISTANCES TRAVELED
Like the individual animals within them, locust swarms are typically in motion and can cover vast distances. In 1954, a swarm flew from northwest Africa to Great Britain. In 1988, another made the lengthy trek from West Africa to the Caribbean.

DID YOU KNOW?
-- There can be as many as 80 million locusts in a swarm.
-- Locust swarms devour every crop in their path.
-- When food runs out, locusts turn cannibal.
-- Locusts are depicted in ancient Egyptian tombs.
-- Locusts have serrated jaws that move from side to side.
-- Heavy rains prompt locust eggs to hatch.

ABOUT LOCUSTS
Common Name: Locusts
Scientific Name: Acrididae
Type: Invertebrates
Diet: Herbivore
Group Name: Swarm
Average life span: Several months
Size: 0.5 to 3 inches
Weight: 0.07 ounces

SOURCE: www.nationalgeographic.com

IN CURRENT NEWS
China deploys army of 100,000 ducks to fight locust invasion in neighbouring Pakistan:

https://www.nairaland.com/5713579/china-deploys-army-ducks-fight
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/china-deploys-army-ducks-fight-21593068

Whoa 80million locust in a swarm that's a lot
Imagine them on your farm