Swarming+Desert+Locusts+by+Jayden+H

__ **Swarming desert locust**  __//

Locusts look like grasshoppers, that’s because they come from the same group called Orthoptera. (Meaning straight wings) Though out this presentation you will read about the locusts anatomy, habitat, life cycle, diet and their predators. I picked the locust for my presentation because there are a lot of interesting facts about them.
 * Introduction** //

A swarming desert locust has a head, antennae, thorax and a abdomen. It’s classified a insect because it has 3 pairs of legs and it’s body is segmented into 3 parts. They have a waxed layer covering their skin to stop water evaporating out of them. Swarming desert locusts live anywhere you can find crops or greenery. Desert locusts live in or around the desert. They like to live on hard, rocky, ruff surfaces not a soft and flat environment. Places become suitable when it’s rained a lot because it lets the eggs hatch and provides food for the nymphs. **// Life Cycle //** Female locusts prefer to lay their eggs in hard soil and will sometimes lay their eggs in tar or congregate roads. They lay their eggs in pods. The pods will have 30 to 60 eggs in one pod. When a number of egg pods are laid by number of locusts this is called a egg bed. Eggs need warmth and moisture to hatch if they don’t they won’t hatch instead they will die. After the nymphs have hatch they have to go through five stages called instars, it molt’s at each instar. At each instar the wings become more noticeable. It normally takes nymphs 4 to 8 weeks to reach a adult. Young nymphs can’t fly. Locusts eat grass, leaves and crops but will sometimes eat linen, cotton and leather. One single locust can eat its own body weight in one day. (About 2 gram’s) A swarm of locusts can eat 423 million pounds very day. (1,911,869,416 kg) Locusts will eat seeds, wheat and maize.
 * // Anatomy //**
 * // Habitat //**
 * // Diet [[image:locust_life_cycle.gif width="580" height="526" align="right"]] //**

The locusts main predators are mammals and birds. Larger insects, spiders, meat ants and reptiles are all predators to the locust, but don’t have a very big impact on a swarm of locusts. Wasps, flies, protozoans, mites and nematodes (round worms) all parasite (crush and eat their prey) locusts. If a protozoan get’s in a locust it makes it way to their gut’s and then eat the locust from the inside. If a locust eats fungi it will die after 10 to 14 days. Occasionally sakes, spiders, scorpions and lizards feed on locusts.
 * // Predators //**

That there can be 80 million locusts in less than a square mile in a swarm A swarm can be 460 square miles long Clearing forests spreads the number of locusts because there is more places to breed In 1954 a swarm flew from northwest Africa to Great Britain (976,896 km) In 1988 another swarm flew from west Africa to the Carribean (8 to 10 thousand km)
 * // Did You Know //**

**// Conclusion //** Locusts come from the grasshopper family. There have been 2 major swarms, the last one was in 1988. They can travel 10,000 km in a plague. Their main predators are birds and mammals. They mainly lay their eggs in tar or congregate roads. Locusts like hard, rocky environments.

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