In recent years, with the continuous warming of the earth's climate, the outbreak of locust plagues around the world has become more and more frequent and larger, posing a huge threat to human food security, and many countries and regions have even entered a state of emergency.
However, the largest locust plague in history, and the largest known animal gathering event in history, covered one-thousandth of the earth's surface area, with a total of 12.5 trillion and a total weight of 27.5 million tons, but in less than 30 years, it was completely exterminated, there was not one left, the locust war ended in the complete victory of mankind, and the locusts in North America did not become a disaster after experiencing another wave of plateau locusts.
<h1>Why is there a locust plague? </h1>
Locusts are orthoptera locusts found in tropical, temperate grasslands and desert regions around the world, with only Antarctica being completely free of locusts and North America having only a few highland locust species.
Locusts have large jaws, feed on a variety of plant leaves, eat up and destroy, without any pressure, some locusts are still omnivorous, like to eat other insect carcasses, and even the same kind of people do not let go.
The most bizarre thing is that locusts are actually species that like to live alone, usually a locust eats quietly on plants, basks in the sun, enjoys rare leisure time, has no quarrel with the world, people and animals are harmless, and live a plain life. So why did locusts gather again and become a great disaster that mankind has been almost completely unable to resist from ancient times to the present?
This starts with a substance called serotonin, also known as serotonin, an inhibitory neurotransmitter that is found primarily in animals, including the gastrointestinal tract, platelets, and central nervous system of humans, and is the source of feelings of happiness and pleasure.
Usually, the locust is a quiet and shy "house" insect, but once you pluck its hind legs, it will cause its serotonin level to increase, become irritable and aggressive, and increase appetite, reproductive ability, and the body will become stronger, dark brown color.
When drought causes locusts to multiply more and more densely, the frequent touching of the hind legs between locusts stimulates their serotonin levels to become higher and higher, and they become more and more irritable, resulting in their transition from solitary to clustered. A 2009 study by the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom found that in just two or three hours, serotonin can change the behavior habits of lone locusts, making them clustered, and the level of serotonin in the body will increase by as much as three times.
Then the small groups become large groups, the large groups become large groups, and finally the locust plague breaks out, sweeping through one area after another, and everywhere it goes, it is plundered, resulting in the destruction of crops.
<h1>Locust plague in East Africa from 2019 to 2020</h1>
The locust plague is a worldwide catastrophe, with a long history, from ancient times to the present, it has continuously caused huge agricultural losses, and even caused food shortages and famine. It is recorded in China from the Book of Verses that the Old Testament Exodus and the New Testament Book of Revelation also depict locust plagues and locusts, and compare them to the devil.
From June last year to this year, there was a large-scale desert locust plague in East Africa, affecting nearly 10 countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, and Somalia, and then spread to the Arabian Peninsula, entering Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iran and other countries; at the same time, Pakistan also broke out of locust plague and spread rapidly to India; in June this year, Paraguay and Argentina in South America also appeared locust plague.
The locust plague has led to a state of emergency in many countries and regions in Africa, the Middle East and the South Asian subcontinent, with at least 2.25 million hectares of land lost and food security affected by 20.2 million people. The specific number of locusts is not scientifically counted, and the rumored 400 billion locusts in India have no credible data source, and only appear in the Chinese media, which may be made up.
<h1>The rise and fall of the world's largest animal cluster</h1>
However, the largest locust plague ever seen in the world is far more than 400 billion, but has reached a jaw-dropping 12.5 trillion, and what is even more jaw-dropping is that this locust finally miraculously disappeared, disappearing without a trace!
This locust is the Rocky Mountain locust, the locust swarm that swept through the western United States in 1875, described by a doctor and amateur meteorologist named Albert Hield, thus becoming known as the Albert Locust Swarm.
Hilde observed swarms of locusts 1.6 km high skimming overhead for 5 consecutive days, obscuring the sun like a blizzard and rolling on the ground like a tidal wave. According to reports released by several neighboring regions, he estimated that the entire locust swarm reached 1.25 billion, 27.5 million tons, covering an area of 180 kilometers wide and 2900 kilometers long, covering an area of 510,000 square kilometers, larger than California, the third largest state in the United States, and accounting for one-thousandth of the entire earth's surface area. The Albert Locust Swarm is thus speculated to be the largest known animal population on Earth.
Albert's swarms plundered everything they went, not only grass and crops, but also leather, wood, wool, and even the clothes that people wore became their food. Even more, because locusts are full of railroad tracks, there is too much grease, and the friction of the wheels is insufficient, and even trains have to be stopped in some areas. People have tried everything to try to eliminate the locusts, but none of them have been able to do so.
It wasn't until the 1880s that farmers began to switch to winter wheat, ripening and harvesting before the locusts migrated to make them hungry; coupled with the discovery of mines in the west, the influx of miners into the gold rush, people began to reclaim wasteland, destroying the eggs that locusts concentrated in the sand near streams and rivers in the Rocky Mountains — it is said to reach more than 150 square inches, resulting in fewer generations than the next, and eventually complete extinction. In 1902, the last living body of the population was discovered in southern Canada and has not been seen since.
Later, in the 1930s, the plateau locust ravaged the western United States, causing severe damage to crops, but has not been able to form large-scale swarms since then, and is currently the only locust species found in North America.
From this point of view, although the locusts are dense and look extremely frightening and helpless, their spawning areas are relatively concentrated and not large, as long as these places are found for simple treatment and killing their eggs, locusts and locust plagues can be eliminated. The world's largest population of locusts has been wiped out by chance before the cause is clear, and if humans really have the heart and money, the life of locusts in other places may not be better.