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On top of a worsening drought and rising temperatures, farmers across the Western third of the United States are battling outbreaks of cannibalistic insects that are ravaging crops from Nevada to Montana. Officials have spent millions of dollars over the past few years trying to control the explosive swarms of Mormon crickets that are responsible for destroying swatches of crops from Nevada to Montana. Native to North America, Mormon crickets got their name in the 1800s when these giant insects ruined the fields of Mormon settlers. These insects are not true crickets; they are actually shield-backed, short-winged katydids that resemble...

Open Your Mind, and Your Mouth You might think of eating insects as something kids do on a dare. But some of these little animals are popular around the world for their nutritional value -- and they’re starting to catch on in the U.S. Not long ago, sushi and lobster didn’t seem all that appetizing to Americans, so it’s not as far-fetched as it sounds.

A massive population of grasshoppers is proliferating in the sweltering American west, where a deep drought has made for ideal conditions for grasshopper eggs to hatch and survive into adulthood. “I can only describe grasshoppers in expletives,” said Richard Nicholson, a cattle rancher in Fort Klamath, a small community in southern Oregon, who once recalled seeing grasshopper bands eat 1,000 acres a day and cover the ground like snow. The insects cause innumerable headaches for farmers and ranchers, competing with cattle for tough-to-find wild forage and costing tens of thousands of dollars in lost crops and associated costs. “They are...

By now, it’s become quite evident that the western half of the U.S. is facing one of the worst megadroughts in decades. We’ve spoken about fallow land and drying up reservoirs, but the question remains what happens next? Well, it’s not great, and it’s straight out of the playbook from the 1930s Great Depression when the same parts of the U.S. were transformed into a desert, triggering a grasshopper plague. A.P. News said federal agriculture officials are set to launch one of the largest grasshopper-killing campaigns in three decades amid an outbreak. The insects belong to the suborder Caelifera family...

JOHANNESBURG -- Locusts by the millions are nibbling their way across a large part of Africa in the worst outbreak some places have seen in 70 years. Is this another effect of a changing climate? Yes, researchers say. An unprecedented food security crisis may be the result. The locusts “reproduce rapidly and, if left unchecked, their current numbers could grow 500 times by June,” the United Nations says. Heavy rains in East Africa made 2019 one of the region’s wettest years on record, said Nairobi-based climate scientist Abubakr Salih Bawanker. He blamed rapidly warming waters in the Indian Ocean off...

It is being called “the Great Grasshopper Invasion of 2019”, and it is really freaking out a lot of people in Las Vegas, because most of them don’t understand why this is suddenly happening. Unusually wet weather earlier this year created ideal breeding conditions, and now massive swarms of grasshoppers have descended upon Sin City. According to AccuWeather, there are “millions” of them, and it is being projected that they will be sticking around “for weeks”. The experts are assuring us that there is nothing to be concerned about, and that is probably true, but I have never heard of...

'Grasshoppers' make Pyongyang tick published Aug 5, 2015, 5:00 am SGT North Korea's tough market rules forcing small traders to become illegal street vendors SEOUL • From the dark alleys of Pyongyang, the showpiece North Korean capital, tiny specks of torchlight shine carefully into the eyes of passers-by, leading to bustling and illegal street markets where traders, usually women, call out: "Buy, buy!" The maeddugi shijang, or "grasshopper markets", get their name from the lightning-quick way traders must pack up and hop from place to place to evade the authorities in a country making a grudging embrace of free enterprise....

A massive swarm of grasshoppers and beetles is making its way toward Oklahoma. Park rangers from Copper Breaks State Park in Quanah, Texas say the mob is so huge that its movement is being picked up on radar. They are reportedly headed northeast towards Oklahoma. We don’t know if they will reach us, but they are making impressive time. The National Weather Service says it is not unusual for the bugs to travel like this during the summer, but it is pretty incredible to watch it on radar. “It doesn’t take a whole lot of bugs to cause that on...

Does it ‘bug’ you?: Worm and cricket lollipops are displayed during a global ‘Pestaurant’ event sponsored by Ehrlich Pest Control at the Occidental Restaurant in Washington, DC.Though slightly uncertain, Erin Kolski pronounced the unusual fare on her plate — a burger made from ground-up grasshoppers — to be surprisingly tasty. “It’s a little crunchy. It tastes fine,” Kolski said, sounding somewhat surprised as she favorably appraised the dish at Washington’s Occidental Restaurant, a popular establishment a stone’s throw from the White House. Hers was one of many such plates served up Wednesday by chef Rodney Scruggs, who helped organize an...

Home> Lifestyle Flour Made From Insects Will Feed Underfed Populations Sept. 30, 2013 By JOANNA PRISCO via Good Morning America Share 875 Share on email 304 Comments PHOTO: Grasshoppers at a market near Oaxaca, Mex. MBA students at McGill University plan to farm insects in other countries and turn them into protein-rich flour for consumption by malnourished populations. Getty Images Chew on this. A team of MBA students were the recipients of the 2013 Hult Prize earlier this week, providing them with $1 million in seed money to produce an insect-based, protein-rich flour for feeding malnourished populations in other countries....

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- A San Francisco restaurant owner had a hit on his hands until the health department stepped in and said he can no longer sell his special grasshopper tacos or any other insect-inspired entrees. But Harry Persaud and his loyal customers are hoping to change their minds.

Came across this while on youtube yesterday. HILLARIOUS! Shows the mindset of Democrats. Here is the about page of a typical Obama supporter in Bolshevik redTo all conservatives suffering from me-ism. The price of living in great societies like America is "progressive" taxation. You "individuals" all enjoy the services made possible by a collective society such as the Internet you are enjoying now. The leaders of these said societies are elected to disperse the revenues gained through taxation for the well-being of the "society" not the "individual". It's called "socialism" and without it, there can be no society. Without a...

An ambitious director might look at Mitch Halligan's property and see an instant B-movie classic: "Invasion of the Grasshoppers." The place is overrun with the greasy little bugs. With each step you take on his property, the squirmy inch-long grasshoppers jump for cover in every direction. Those that don't crunch under foot perch themselves atop tall grass stalks, crawl up pant legs or munch through gardens.

Parasites were the inspiration behind the creature that terrified moviegoers in Alien. Now sci-fi screenwriters may have a new role model—parasitic worms that brainwash their victims. Scientists say hairworms, which live inside grasshoppers, pump the insects with a cocktail of chemicals that makes them commit suicide by leaping into water. The parasites then swim away from their drowning hosts to continue their life cycle. A team of French biologists made the discovery after monitoring grasshoppers that became trapped in a swimming pool in southern France. Postmortems of the grasshoppers suggest that worms triggered the insects' death leaps by sabotaging their...

Eleven people died and thousands were taken to hospital with breathing difficulties after a swarm of grasshoppers invaded a town in central Sudan.