Locusts swoop down on Ethiopia
"Crops in large swathes of Ethiopia risk being destroyed by swarms of locusts coming from northern Somalia, ... locust swarms have been confirmed in seven regions in the country, including in areas where there is no previous record of infestation". The vast majority of Ethiopia's 77 million inhabitants depend on subsistence agriculture and have been badly hit by successive infestations of voracious locusts that destroy every plant in their path.
Locusts buzz, swarm on chemical cue:
The same chemical that helps turn people and lab mice into crack addicts may also cause locusts to swarm. A team of researchers from the UK and Australia has discovered that serotonin seems to trigger the swarms of desert locusts, devastating crop pests that span a fifth of the globe.
Serotonin has been found in every multi-cellular organism on the planet. The neurotransmitter is associated with euphoria, agitation and — when it’s lacking — depression in people, which is why many anti-depression drugs act to boost the chemical in the human brain.
“It’s really interesting,” study co-author Malcolm Burrows, a zoologist at the University of Cambridge, said in a press release. “Here we have a solitary and lonely creature, the desert locust. But just give them a little serotonin, and they go and join a gang!” The new study appears in tomorrow’s issue of the journal Science. Michael Anstey, a zoologist at the University of Oxford, is lead author.
[look at those giant teeth]
Locust Facts:
- Locusts are grasshoppers that swarm. Of the 8,000 known species of grasshoppers throughout the world only about 12 are swarm-forming locusts.
- An adult Desert Locust is 2-2.5 inches long and weighs 0.05-0.07 oz.
- A Desert Locust adult can consume roughly its own weight in fresh food per day.
- They are prodigious fliers, covering 60 miles in 5-8 hours.
- The two phases are so different in appearance and behavior that they were thought to be separate species until 1921.
About Serotonin
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