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African Ecology pp 481–532Cite as

Locusts the Forgotten Plague Part I: Locusts and Their Ecology

Part of the Springer Geography book series (SPRINGERGEOGR)

Abstract

Smuts considered locusts a far greater scourge than rinderpest because the effects were more dreadful and far-reaching. Chapman (1976) pointed out that a cow eats about 12 kg of vegetation/day and grazing capacity of land in the tropics is often of the order of 15 animals/km2. Consumption by a locust swarm over the same area might be as much as 150,000 kg, about 1,000 times more than the cattle would eat. One tonne of locusts is estimated to eat as much as 10 elephants or 25 camels or 2,500 people (Steedman 1988). There can be at least 40 million and sometimes over 80 million locusts/km2 in a swarm and swarms may extend over 1,000 km2, containing some 40 million locusts weighing in total about 80,000 t. A swarm in Kenya was estimated to contain 40 million individuals, another estimate is 150 million/km2 and such a swarm covering 100 km2 could contain over 10,000 million individuals. A perhaps less reliable estimate from South Africa in the 1890s put the number in a swarm covering 18 km2 at 169 billion (Munro 1900). Like rinderpest, locust plagues were not peculiar to Africa but formerly widespread in Europe, locusts reaching from time to time as far north as the British Isles, species occurring eastwards into India and the Far East, and south into Australia; while other species in both North and South America wrought equal havoc. In China a total of 173 outbreaks in 1,924 years is on record (Riley et al. 1880).

Keywords

  • Rift Valley
  • Oviposition Site
  • Breeding Area
  • White Stork
  • Desert Locust

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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Fig. 10.1
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Plate 10.1

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    Clive A. Spinage D.Sc

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Spinage, C.A. (2012). Locusts the Forgotten Plague Part I: Locusts and Their Ecology. In: African Ecology. Springer Geography. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-22872-8_10

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