Egypt Spring Turns to Plague of Locusts

Locust alert in Middle East as plague descends on Egypt

A swarm of an estimated 30million insects has been devastating crops in Egypt, fuelling apocalyptic fears because of the infestation’s proximity to the Bible story of Passover in which a swarm of locusts, the eighth of ten plagues, is imposed on Egyptians by God for enslaving and abusing ancient Hebrews.

The locusts pass through the country as part of their normal migration from north east Sudan to Saudi Arabia, the Egyptian Agriculture Ministry said, emphasising that Egypt was just ‘a transfer station’ for the locusts, which were in larger numbers this year.

Proving that the insects do not respect international borders.

Israel’s Agriculture Ministry set up an emergency hotline today and urged residents to be vigilant in reporting sightings of the insects to prevent an outbreak.

A special task force has also been set up to help farmers manage infestations.

As tempting as it is to say this is karmic payback for the browning of the Arab Spring in Egypt, or the treatment of the Palestinians by Israel, or a general pox on all their houses, or even global warming climate change, sometime nature just does shitty things to humanity spontaneously.

Locusts are a species (or rather several species) of grasshoppers whose morphology and behaviors change when their population reaches a critical density.  Once the population gets high enough, both the nymphs (non-flying juveniles) and the flying adults change from solitary to gregarious, and form swarms which travel from place to place, stripping vegetation bare along the way.

North America had it's own species of locust, the Rocky Mountain Locust, which form swarms in the late 1800s.  They are thought to be extinct, eradicated not by pesticides or climate change, but rather by destruction of their native "between swarms" refuges by American agriculture.  They are not missed. This leaves North American unique among temperate continents as locust free.

Oddly, locusts can be a source of nutrition for humans:

Several cultures throughout the world consume insects. Even Islamic and Jewish dietary laws, which prohibit the consumption of other insects, allow locusts and crickets to be eaten, particularly as famine foods for the poor.

Professor Arnold van Huis at Wageningen University in Netherlands claims that locusts can be harvested to yield about five times as much edible protein per unit of fodder as compared to a cattle, and to produce lower levels of greenhouse gases in the process.

Um, no thanks; but then again, deep fat fried and heavily salted?  Maybe...