An Infection Turns Swarming Locusts Into Solitary Grasshoppers, Study Finds
Locusta migratoria From Tierdoku.com, CC BY-SA 2.0 DE The difference between a locust and a grasshopper is at once great and maybe much, much less than you'd think. I'll let this Aeon magazine article explain: At the front of the room, a bug-obsessed neuroscientist named Steve Rogers was describing these two creatures — one elegant, modest, and well-mannered, the other a soccer hooligan. The grasshopper, he noted, sports long legs and wings, walks low and slow, and dines discreetly in solitude. The locust scurries hurriedly and hoggishly on short, crooked legs and joins hungrily with others to form swarms that darken the sky and descend to chew the farmer’s fields bare. . . . So I was quite amazed when Rogers told us that grasshopper and locust are in fact the same species, even the same animal, and that, as...