WHEN IS A LOCUST A GRASSHOPPER?
Rex Burress
While writing about locust trees growing along the Feather River, I was confronted by the word “locust” being used for an insect, too!
Certain grasshopper species in Africa, Asia, Australia, and some other continents are called locust when they go into a swarming stage, flying in great masses of a million or more for long distances to reach vegetated areas, literally stripping the landscape of plants. In biblical times such attacks were associated with plagues, and the farmers had no efficient way of stopping them.
At high population densities and certain environmental conditions, some grasshopper species can change color and behavior and form swarms. These are called locusts, but they remain the same species. There is no swarming going on in America presently, as they aren't given a chance to swarm. The Devastating Grasshopper, [Mellanoplus devastator], the most abundant in California with swarming potential, is among the 200 species in the state. [There are about 22,000 species worldwide]
The last locust development in America was in 1875 when there was a swarm of the Rocky Mountain species that was 1800 miles long and 110 miles wide, consisting of approx 3.5 trillion—the largest swarm ever known! The species is extinct now, once abundant like the Passenger Pigeon but habitat destruction, poisons, and disregard decimated them. Some would say “good riddance,” but those unique genes are lost forever.
About the only consolation is grasshoppers are edible. Fry them on a skillet and they are crunchy like bacon, and taste like bacon. I've eaten them, and especially crickets. Other than fattening wildlife and tribes into gross good fortune, the other use I found for them in fishing days was as fish bait. Just catching one is a challenge though, because they can jump and fly, and I'd usually end up using worms after trying to impale the rather handsome head of a big lubber grasshopper, and it would mouth a big drop of “tobacco juice” to pop on me.
To further muddle the name-calling picture, in rural Missouri everyone used to call cicadas by the name locust! Maybe it was because their shrill songs in the summer would drive you loco! The racket would only last a couple weeks after the cicadas mated, laid eggs in the ground, and died...with out eating! From the egg came a robust white grub that burrows in the ground and eats roots for 17-years before transforming to adult again in complete metamorphosis. Some cicada species go under for 5 years; some for 13. Grasshoppers have incomplete metamorphosis via six instar stages, but they eat throughout their long larva lives.
The drama of an animal jumping a lengthy distance compared to man, is of utter fascination. Not only do large kangaroos have the ability to make massive jumps, but a minute animal like a flea can jump 220 times their body length, the longest and highest jumper of all thus found to date. Here is a list of ten notable Highest Jumping Animals: 10. White Tailed Jackrabbit 9. Red Kangaroo 8. Bharal 7, Klipspringer 6. GRASSHOPPER[20 times body length,TBL] 5. Kangaroo Rat [45 TBL] 4. Froghopper [70 TBL] 3. Jumping Spider [160 TBL] 2. Tree Frog [150 TBL] NUMBER 1 The Flea [220 TBL] .
“Before one jumps to conclusions, figure out how far you have to jump!”--Rex Burress
“A worm is as good a traveler as a grasshopper or cricket, and a much wiser settler. Worms do not hop away from drought but escape by boring a few inches deeper.”--Henry David Thoreau
“Growth, growth, growth-- that's all we've known! World auto production is doubling every ten years; human population-growth is like nothing that has happened in all geologic history. The world will not tolerate so many doubling's of anything-- whether its power plants or grasshoppers.
--M. King Hubbert