Wait locusts are grasshoppers?
I have always wondered what these things were.
Gregarious just means outgoing to humans… it’s like some Super Saiyan form of grasshopper then? They just become obnoxiously outgoing?
Can somebody explain because I am an idiot
I’ve eaten grasshoppers (here in the U.S.) Roasted, they have kind of a nutty flavor.
yep. the small number of grasshopper species that swarm are called locusts
Its cool to watch the transition (at least when it doesn’t lead to mass destruction). We have a crowded colony of gregarious grasshoppers (since they don’t swarm they aren’t technically locusts), and go out and catch solitary ones. When you first add a solitary animal to the colony, they hate it. They try to hide in the corner and get away for the first 2 days. Then from day 3 on, they’re part of the herd and crawling all over each other like ants or other colony insects. There is a physical change when they switch to gregarious as well. Depending on age and species they change color and/or grow larger. And they will eat anything - plants, wood, metal, plastic - if it fits in their mouth they will eat it.
It doesn’t even take actual contact with other locusts. If you just rub their hindleg intermittently for 3 days it envokes the same serotonergic pathway that produces the switch to gregarious.
Off topic, but damn, science is fascinating! I will never understand folks who reject it. Never ending new stuff to learn.
Can locusts actually devour metal?
I’m seriously fascinated because I knew none of these things.
Also did you just admit to masturbating grasshoppers or did I miss something
They can’t digest metal and it’ll tear them up, but they will try to eat anything. I’ve pulled over an inch of wire out of one of their mouths that it tried to eat. Swarms have stripped all the paint from buildings, eaten livestock, people’s clothes, and really anything they can. I completely get why people might think a locust swarm is some crazy devine punishment.
No, I don’t even think thats possible. I just throw them into our colony, but when people have manually stimulated them to turn them gregarious its not sexual (for either party). The genitalia are at the end of the abdomen (tail) and touching their legs just simulates other locusts in the swarm bumping into them
When that occurred in China, no $70million of poison was sprayed …they survived by eating grasshoppers
This happened in China…$70 million poison spraying poison unnecessary … the Chinses survived by eating the grasshoppers
If you’re talking about the recent one, that’s not accurate…
The world needs more frogs–so many species have disappeared.
That is the one.
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