How Do Locusts Produce Swarms?

Female locusts lay three egg pods during their short lifetime but that's about 200 eggs altogether. Many females choose the same egg-laying site and as many as 1000 egg pods have been found per square metre of ground. The usual incubation period of the egg pods is 14 to 70 days but eggs have been known to hatch after 3 years.

Once the young locusts, or hoppers, hatch, they group together and eat vast amounts of low-lying plants. They cannot yet fly. Next, it enters the fledgling stage. It can now fly, but cannot breed for another 40 days. It is the fledgling locusts that swarm, travelling huge distances to find new sources of food and new breeding grounds.

The most destructive insect in the world is the desert locust (Schistocera gregaria) which lives in Africa, the Middle East, and India. There can be as many as 40 000 million insects in a single swarm of desert locusts. A large swarm of desert locusts can eat 80 000 tons of food each day. That's enough to feed 400 000 people for a year. The plague of locusts that is mentioned in the Bible was probably caused by a swarm of desert locusts.