Schistocerca gregaria, The Desert Locust (+Dissection)

Locusts. They have been known as a devastating pest since biblical times and are still around today. Those tiny insects can eat their own weight in plants each day. Now, that doesn’t sound like a lot as they’re really light. But how many locusts can be in one swarm?

Thousand? Ten thousand? A million?

A locust swarm of Schistocerca gregaria, the desert locust, can be several hundred square kilometers big. And each square kilometer can contain … up to 80 million locusts.

That’s a lot!

Luckily, they don’t always swarm like that, it’s tied to their population density. The more crowded it gets, the higher is the need to travel. Having too many other locusts close to them, touching them, triggers a metabolic response which also changes the locust’s appearance.

Talk about overreacting to crowded spaces …
_@suesa

And they can fly far! In 1954 one swarm was recorded to travel the whole distance from northwest Africa to Great Britain. But in most cases, they can be found in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Now, for educational reasons, I had to dissect two specimen of Schistocerca gregaria.

A female:

I cut it open from the back, you can see how the wings are spread out to the sides. The white “strings” are the trachea, with which the locust breathes. The big white blob in the lower part of the animal is the ovary, you can even see some eggs in it.

I also dissected a male:

Notice that where the female’s ovaries were, there’s only some yellow-ish tissue. Usually, yellow tissue is fat but in this case, it’s the testes. (Fat is the yellow tissue everywhere else! In the female too.)

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Sources:

Desert locust

On the origin of the desert locust Schistocerca gregaria

BBC Nature Wildlife

Locusts – National Geographic

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Pictures taken by me, “Graphic content” warning by @steemitadventure .

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