Alone they are very innocent but when they join together they are a force to reckon with!
So much so that they have been described in almost all the holy books!
Do not worry and let your imaginations not fly! They are simply insects!
You like them as Grasshoppers and are terrified when they are LOCUSTS! But did you know that they are simply the same!?
The innocent Grasshopper can become the deadly Locust simply by forming a team and having only a single goal!
Technically what are Locusts? Locusts belong to a specific group of short-horned grasshoppers (Acrididae family) that have the ability to switch between a solitary and a swarming phase, known as gregarious behavior! This is a single point focussed behaviour where they have only one thing in their little brain!
Normally, these grasshoppers are innocuous, their numbers are low, and they do not pose a major economic threat to agriculture. However, under suitable conditions of drought followed by rapid vegetation growth, serotonin in their brains triggers dramatic changes: they start to breed abundantly, becoming gregarious and nomadic (loosely described as migratory) when their populations become dense enough.
They form bands of wingless nymphs that later become swarms of winged adults. Both the bands and the swarms move around, rapidly strip fields, and damage crops. The adults are powerful fliers; they can travel great distances, consuming most of the green vegetation wherever the swarm settles!
Locusts have formed plagues since prehistory. The ancient Egyptians carved them on their tombs and the insects are mentioned in the Iliad, the Mahabharata, the Bible and Quran. Swarms have devastated crops and have caused famines and human migrations.
More recently, changes in agricultural practices and better surveillance of locust breeding grounds have allowed control measures at an early stage. Traditional locust control uses insecticides from the ground or air, but newer biological control methods are proving effective. Swarming behaviour decreased in the 20th century, but despite modern surveillance and control methods, swarms can still form; when suitable weather conditions occur and vigilance lapses, plagues can occur.
During plague years, desert locusts can cause widespread damage to crops, as they are highly mobile and feed on large quantities of any kind of green vegetation, including crops, pasture, and fodder.
A typical swarm can be made up of 150 million locusts per square kilometre (390,000,000 per square mile) and fly up to 150 kilometres (93 mi) in one day. Even a very small, 1-square-kilometre (0.39 sq mi) locust swarm can eat the same amount of food in a day as about 35,000 people!
So locust is basically a grasshopper who found out what Unity can do!
Point to ponder!
And a story to wonder!
Talking of story, you can check out some good ones by Ruskin Bond!
Shubh ratri…
ramadocblog 