Desert Locust - Plant Gluttons

These locust are found Africa and Asia. Their presence doesn’t always mean starvation for the people’s of these continents. These locusts usually solitary creatures will form huge swarms under the right directions. For the locusts, it takes several rainy seasons before the solitary, desert locusts turn to into the swarms. These swarms can contain up to 50 billion individual insects. They move over the land devouring all the vegetation, that is green and live, when the insects have eat all the plants, they move on to greener pastures. These insects are 3.5 inches long. They have a life span of about 6 months. The hairs on their the head are used to detect air currents. They can travel at speeds of 22 mph. An individual swarm can eat 20,000 tons of plants a day. An individual locust can eat their body weight in plants a day. The swarm of 50 billion insects can weigh 70,000 tons. For locusts, hormones dictate whether the insects are in solitary form or in the swarm form.