Apr 11 2024 11 mins
In the 1870s locust swarms of biblical proportions descended onto the Great Plains, devouring everything in their path. Billions of locust blocked out the sun and devastated America’s agriculture, creating a national emergency unlike any other.
Sources include:
The book Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect that Shaped the American Frontier by Jeffrey Lockwood
The Biogeosciences article “A probe into the different fates of locust
swarms in the plains of North America and East Asia” by G. Yu, D. Johnson, X Ki and Y. Li
The Kansas Historical Society article “Grasshopper Plague of 1874”
The BBC web article “Why Do Locusts Swarm?”