I've only once seen an outbreak of locusts and I hope I'll never see one again, it still gives me the creeps more than a decade later. Everything covered in insects, as far as you could see. This was in Northern Canada, just South of Sudbury, near the Magnetawan river.
I'd never seen anything like that ever before, I had to stop for gas, saw a few insects land, went in to pay and by the time I wanted to go back to the car it was literally covered in insects, there was no way to get into it without bringing a few hundred of them along. I ended up waiting out the worst of it.
Horror movies really don't capture the feeling well.
Cicadas aren't locusts. They don't really swarm like locusts its just that there are a lot of them at the same time. Locusts are really just stressed out grasshoppers.
Locusts have been extinct in North America since about 1930.
The biggest plague used to be the Rocky Mountain locust, which would cover every surface for days, utterly destroying farms. Those went extinct in about 1905. The High Plains Locusts went extinct in about 1930. [1]
There are various theories about why they went extinct -- something to do with what the settlers and farmers were doing to the land. But it wasn't an obvious culprit like pesticide, which wasn't really in widespread use until about the 40s.
I'm actually worried they won't show up in the numbers they're expected to. I've read several old stories about thick clouds of birds and/or insects literally eclipsing the sun (the biblical plagues of egypt is one notorious example), but then I also read some recent articles about how some species that used to show up seasonally in large swarms suddenly had their numbers drastically decreased one year (monarch butterflies are a famous instance of this)
As I understand it, the largest consensus around probable cause for that decrease has to do with neonicotinoid pesticides, which both bioaccumulate and also affect many more species than their intended targets. I don't actually know whether larvae of a brood that's been underground for over a decade would be more or less likely to be exposed to concentrations significant enough to do harm.
An echo of the clouds of birds is a daily “commute” of black crows in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.
Around sunrise, they head to forested land northeast of the city. At sundown, they head back to their roosting grounds in Victoria Park. The sky is filled with hundreds of crows for approximately 10 to 15 minutes during this rush hour. It’s absolutely fascinating to watch.
Every so often, you get to be “lucky” winner of them roosting in a tree in your back yard overnight. They cackle throughout the night. Anything under the tree will be caked in droppings by morning.
Crows are way too smart for decoys or actual scarecrows. The only thing that scares them away would be an owl or another dead crow. Someone did try shoot one early last year, but police investigated because setting off a firearm is prohibited within city limits.
> I've only once seen an outbreak of locusts and I hope I'll never see one again, it still gives me the creeps more than a decade later. Everything covered in insects, as far as you could see.
There is a locust swarm in Things Fall Apart (a work of fiction) which is viewed as cause for celebration. The locusts cover everything and eat the crops -- but they can be harvested and eaten themselves.
I was just in the Brazilian Amazon, and there was a funny moment there re: spiders... I stepped out onto a small floating dock and my weight sank the bottom of the dock below water level. There were probably ~100 spiders of all sizes that immediately emerged around my feet from between the slats as they were forced out from their homes underneath the dock.
Fortunately I don't mind spiders much, but it did look like a scene out of a horror movie.
Thanks for the details. I've now added a new entry to my list of places never to go. I do hope those little guys were able to resettle somewhere less prone to anthropogenic climate change ;)
Places to Avoid, list written + maintained by Arthur Collé:
[] Deep space [added: after seeing Gravity]
[] Mariana Trench [added: after seeing Underwater]
My brother told me to climb under an outdoor couch in Texas when I was about 6 and I was immediately covered by hundreds of harvestmen (aka daddy long legs.) I remember being startled and yelling for help but was not permanently scarred or anything. Spiders only creep me out the usual amount.
I remember Underwater for skipping fast forward after the first five to ten minutes, and it sounded almost comically. Just varying screems to the end. And way too much "teal and orange".
In Texas 100 years ago tarantulas used to be so thick crossing highways that cars had to stop. I haven't seen reports of quite that many in the last few decades. These are always males looking for mates. They are venomous but rarely bite and their venom is no more dangerous to people than a bee sting (i.e. it can be dangerous if you're allergic). They make good pets although wild-caught ones don't live long.
As kids we would catch them and keep them in jars for a few days, then release them again. We also caught king snakes and fed them blue belly lizards...which may lead you to understand our fear response with wild animals.
... we've all heard the factoid that the average person supposedly eats 4 spiders per second. This statistic is misleading; it's based on a study examining on the peak rate of spider consumption in areas where the spider-streams are densest. The global average rate is probably closer to 1 spider per second (obviously higher while asleep than while awake) ...
(For those who didn't click, note that What-If #120 is "Excerpts from What If articles written in a world which, thankfully, is not the one we live in")
Then better not visit the "Hafen City" in Hamburg, Germany.
Especially not the latest metro station "Elbbrücken" there, and especially not at night, because then they come out to hunt all the other insects which are caught in their nets, which they build over or near any light. Even over the touch screens of the ticket machines. They seem to be E-V-E-R-Y-W-H-E-R-E! BRRR!
I was in DC in 2004 when they came out last time. I don’t recall any concerns about agriculture and nothing in our yard got damaged. You just had to clean up a lot of dead cicadas. I think most of their feeding is done underground and they come out to mate and then die. It’s not like locusts that eat everything in their way. Birds were super happy though.
It stlll impresses me that they are better at keeping track of years than I am.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxh2X6NjuhY