They might look like harmless grasshoppers, but locusts have an appetite for destruction. When the conditions are right, they transform from mild-mannered loners into gregarious partiers. They swarm, causing chaos and suffering at the level of a biblical plague. So what sets them off?
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“Locusts are certainly immensely fascinating creatures,” says Rick Overson, a research scientist for Arizona State University’s Global Locust Initiative. “Growing up in the Phoenix Valley, my parents called noisy cicadas locusts. But to a biologist, the locust is a special type of grasshopper.
They have this really fantastic ability to respond in a way that we call phenotypic plasticity. If the conditions are one way, they can become what we consider a normal, solitary grasshopper that's camouflaged green, goes relatively unnoticed and avoids other members of its species.
But then when conditions are right, which a lot of times is rain falling in the desert and producing a lot of food, those locusts then can do this switch and move down a different developmental pathway and their coloration changes, their neurochemistry changes, their behavior changes and they become attracted to one another. They begin to march in these coordinated formations.”
--- Why do locusts swarm?
Locusts swarm as a reaction to being crowded together. That can happen in different ways, but one common way is when drought reduces the amount of surrounding vegetation and the locusts get concentrated on the remaining plants.
--- How long do locusts live?
There is variation between species and between individuals within a species, but many species like desert locusts live about three to five months.
--- Do locusts bite?
Locusts generally don’t bite people, though they may be able to give a little nibble in defense. Like other grasshoppers, locusts will typically try to leap away from danger. If that doesn’t work they can kick with their powerful hind legs. They also have the ability to regurgitate partially digested food and enzymes at their attacker. The dark unpleasant substance is referred to as “tobacco juice.”
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22 ноя 2021
