As these ravenous little creatures are eating their way across the Horn of Africa, Southern Asia and even Eastern South America, just what the hell are they?
If the 2020 version of these marauders stays steady on its warpath, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization says desert locusts can pose a threat to the livelihoods of 10% of the world’s population.
The peril may already be underway: Early June projections by the FAO are forecasting a second generation of spring-bred locusts in Eastern Africa, giving rise to new, powerful swarms of locust babies capable of wreaking havoc until mid-July or beyond.
. What** is a locust?
What makes a locust a locust? According to Overson, it comes down to a superpower possessed by locusts that enables them to go through a remarkable switch in development.
Most of the time, locusts exist in their “grasshopper phase” — they lead solitary lives, they’re green and pretty unremarkable.
But when environmental conditions are right — usually when there’s a lot of rainfall and moisture — something dramatic happens: “They increase in numbers, and as they do so, they sense one another around them,” says Overson.
The creatures undergo a remarkable transformation. “They change their physiology. Their brain changes, their coloration changes, their body size changes,” Overson says. “Instead of repelling one another, they become attracted to one another — and if those conditions persist in the environment, they start to march together in coordinated formations across the landscape, which is what we’re seeing in eastern Africa.”
How far can locusts travel?
“They are powerful, long-distance flyers, so they can easily go a hundred plus kilometers in a 24-hour period,” Overson notes. “They can easily move across countries in a matter of days, which is one of the other major challenges in coordinated efforts that are required between nations and institutions to manage them.”
How do locusts affect food security?
Locusts are ravenous eaters. An adult desert locust that weighs about 2 grams (a fraction of an ounce) can consume roughly its own weight daily. And they’re not picky at all. According to the FAO, a swarm of just 1 square kilometer — again, about a third of a square mile — can consume as much food as would be eaten by 35,000 people (or six elephants) in a single day.
In the year of Pharaoh Trump 2020, this is probably the least known but most serious threat to humankind. Save a little extra maybe to help the millions that will be left without food.
They can be eaten. Just sayin’
I like the way that you think.
I know Im in the minority but I love the way you use emojis.
susan
June 25, 2020, 6:47pm
6
Thank you! All those semiotics classes inspire iconography jokes at times. I am now checking to see if all the plagues can be represented by by our new emojis.
susan
June 25, 2020, 6:55pm
7
Nice effort!! I was wrong about the new boards. I like the new and different ways to express ourselves.
The Saharan sandstorm is here.
The world has already gone to hell, just another disaster of 2020. 2020 seems like a good numbered year to end it all…
This looks like a job for Saint Urho , legendary grasshopper chaser!
Folly
June 25, 2020, 10:51pm
13
Right… Are we sure it’s sand? Has anybody…zoomed in and enhanced?
Let me check with Son-of-a-wrek. He has his own theories of such things.
Where are the seagulls when they need them?
And the locusts sang, yeah, it give me a chill Oh, the locusts sang such a sweet melody Oh, the locusts sang their high whining trill Yeah, the locusts sang and they were singing for me
Latest Breaking News, U.S. and World Politics, Crime, Business, Science, Technology, Autos, Entertainment, Culture, Movie, Music, Sports.
And now they hit New Dehli, India.
A miles-long cloud of locusts swarmed India’s capital region over the weekend, flying through metro stations and playgrounds, invading sugar cane fields and threatening major losses to the agriculture sector at a time when coronavirus restrictions have already caused the loss of millions of jobs.
In a year punctuated by cyclones, heat waves, surging coronavirus infections and overwhelmed hospitals, scientists warn that the locusts could push agrarian parts of India to the brink of disaster, severely disrupting food supplies and slashing earnings for millions of struggling farmers.
We should just do the same thing we did to exterminate the Rocky Mountain locust .
If only we knew what it was.
Wikipedia suggested this:
If so, it doesn’t seem to have been done deliberately.
No lice available
(it’s boils, damn it)
