A: Eathquakes. Floods. Hurricanes. Tsunamis. It seems that every day we read about at least one of these somewhere in the world. But every year, somewhere, another kind of disaster causes great damage to plants and people. It’s something much smaller and not so well-known as an earthquake or a tsunami — it’s an insect called the locust.
B: The locust usually does things alone — it lives on its own and eats on its own. But, sometimes, something changes the way nature works. When the number of locusts increases somewhere and there are lots of plants to eat, the locust get together in ‘swarms’.
C: Perhaps the most dangerous locust is the desert locust. It is found in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia — in about 60 countries altogether. When desert locusts swarm, the bring problems to one-thenth of all the humans in the world.
D: The numbers are huge and frightening. A swarm of desert locusts can be 1,200 km2 in size — imagine an area that is over 20 kilometres wide and 50 kilometres long, full of locust! And there can be 50 million locusts in each square kilometre. Each locust eats its own weight in plants every day — so a swarm of desert locusts can eat more than 150 million kilos of food in one day. They can also fly very long distances — in 1954 a swarm of locust from northwest Africa flew thousands of miles fo finally land in Great Britain!
E: It’s no wonder that farmers in many countries of the world dear the desert locustmore than snakes and spiders. It’s the desert locust that destroys the harvest and brings hunger to people all over the world.