They’re big enough to stretch across four fingers of your hand. Swarms in “Biblical” proportions of giant and ravenous insects, with a stinger-like ovipositor, are devouring crops in the West like an insatiable eating machine.
Swarming insects the stuff of nightmares
In case you haven’t read the Bible or have seen the movie The Ten Commandments, among the frightening plagues that God imposes on Egypt is the “plague of locusts.”
Technically, locusts are a species of short-horned grasshoppers, and what they’re known for is swarming. Simply put, locusts will go through polymorphism, reproducing in huge numbers, transforming from a solitary phase into a mass, called a gregarious or social phase. This is where things get really scary.
In about three months, the number of insects can multiply by 20 times, reaching densities of about 80 million insects per square kilometer, the BBC reports.
Insects can rapidly devour crops on massive scale
To say the insects become ravenous is an incredible understatement – they become an insatiable eating machine straight out of a horror film.
Every single insect can chow down about two grams of vegetation every day. But a swarm of about 80 million insects can chomp away an unfathomable amount of crops per day that would be the food equivalent eaten by 35,000 people.
It’s easy to see what devastation these insects can wreak on the human food supply.
They’re huge and creepy
Think of them as a cricket, but super-sized. The name for these giant insects is Mormon Crickets. However, despite the name, they are technically a species of flightless katydids, called a shieldbacked katydid – not official cricket at all.
How did they get the name? It’s not because they swarm in biblical proportions or pray, although they do prey on vegetation. They got their name from Mormon settlers in 19th century Utah who had their crops ravaged by the pesky insects, Yahoo! reports.
While these large insects can grow to three inches in length, which makes them look kind of creepy, they aren’t harmful to humans. The long long ovipositor extending from the rear end of females is sometimes mistaken for a stinger. However, Mormon crickets do not bite, carry disease, or pose a threat to animals that consume them, 2 News reports.
Still, a swarm of these insects would still be the stuff of nightmares.
USDA concerned as insects ravaging crops in the West
Outbreaks of Mormon crickets can often follow drought conditions, and the West is currently in the midst of a “mega-drought.”
Farmers in the West are reporting they are battling outbreaks of Mormon cricket swarms that are devastating crops, including hay they use to feed their livestock.
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) says not only do the insects devour crops and vegetation, but in doing so, they also alter how water runoff and patterns of erosion occur, which in turn affect nutrient cycling, GaaTimes reports.
Officials have taken to spraying fields with pesticides and recommend private landowners do the same, with some states allocating funding and offering reimbursement for the cost.
The USDA says it’s preferable to spray only some sections of the field in reducing populations while leaving others untouched. Environmentalists have raised objections to using pesticides, and one group has sued the USDA over its spraying program.
