Our little Locust Friend

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We were picking tomatoes and this little fellow gave Maggie a start… she almost picked him and then kinda freaked.

My children are still grasping the whole excessive wildlife here at the ranch thing…


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She thought he was a grasshopper but then when I coaxed him out to get a good look, I knew our little science lecture friend was no teeny hopper… no, this was a big old locust… plague friend and the object of teenager comparison when you come home from the store.

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He was definitely a nice specimen, and we used a stick to move him from our lovely tomatoes and then examine him for awhile. He was pretty accomodating and it was fun to see him up close. But eventually his swarm of friends was calling so off he flew and of course as good homeschoolers are, we went in the house and looked them up on the internet…

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.

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.

And look… there is a website devoted just to keeping tabs on these little buggers in African and Asia!

LOCUST WATCH

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About Mobymom

the banjo player for Deepwater Bluegrass, and the editor of BuckeyeBluegrass.com as well as the main graphic designer of the Westvon Publishing empire. She is a renaissance woman of many talents and has two lovely daughters and a rehab mobile home homestead to raise.

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