
Locusts destroy crops in 'worst invasion in Sardinia for 60 years' - neom
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48580182
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matmann2001
Hope you all remembered to short sesame seed futures.

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1290cc
"Cicadas..."

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Haga
Joke aside, Italy, Spain and France could get something similar near future

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beautifulfreak
Brown marmorated stinkbugs mentioned in the article are a problem where I
live, southeastern US. Somehow they get into the house, then crawl into the
light fixtures and die. I always wonder what natural predator is absent when
there's an insect pest problem.

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microwavecamera
Apparently in Asia it has a natural predator, the awesomely named samurai
wasp. It's a tiny parasitic wasp that lays their eggs in stinkbugs.

[https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/08/scientists-spent-
yea...](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/08/scientists-spent-years-plan-
import-wasp-kill-stinkbugs-then-it-showed-its-own)

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undersuit
Parisitic wasps are some of my favorite insects to learn about as long as they
aren't doing any mind control tricks on their hosts.

My favorite is the Megaphragma mymaripenne[1], the adults are said to have
reduced the size of 95% of their neuron cells by getting rid of the nucleus.

[1][http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2011/11/3...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2011/11/30/how-
fairy-wasps-cope-with-being-smaller-than-amoebas/)

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NeedMoreTea
Honourable mention for the microscopic trichogramma wasp, eater of clothes
moth larvae. The Natural History Museum deployed them a few years back to deal
with a moth outbreak. Supposedly the most successful way of dealing with an
outbreak.

[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/11682039/When-
moths...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/11682039/When-moths-come-
to-stay-theres-only-one-solution.html)

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ohiovr
I'm scared to ask but why have I never heard about locust plagues in the USA?

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voxic11
North America used to have massive locust swarms back in the 19th century.
But...

> The Rocky Mountain locust ranged through the western half of the United
> States and some western portions of Canada. Sightings often placed their
> swarms in numbers far larger than any other locust species, with one famous
> sighting in 1875 estimated at 198,000 square miles (510,000 km2) in size
> (greater than the area of California), weighing 27.5 million tons and
> consisting of some 12.5 trillion insects.

> Less than 30 years later, the species was apparently extinct. The last
> recorded sighting of a live specimen was in 1902 in southern Canada.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Mountain_locust](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Mountain_locust)

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kombucha11
I find it fascinating that we dont know how they became extinct. I had
originally thought it was simply habitat destruction but that hasn't really be
proven at all.

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dredds
Indeed, some thought it was simply farmers plowing fields or stock grazing,
but their origin point were mountain valleys so it doesn't seem their demise
would have been as rapid as it actually was.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqyCO1eVC68&t=26m38s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqyCO1eVC68&t=26m38s)

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sixplusone
Grasshoppers are pretty nutritious, and didn't the UN want people to use more
micro-livestock? Instead of spraying poison everywhere, develop a new market.

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gcatalfamo
Perhaps not everyone, especially Italians, actually want to eat insects

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sixplusone
Lobster and shrimp were considered garbage, bottom-feeding poverty food at one
time. Let fashion and marketing work their magic.

