Have you ever seen locusts marching in a circle?

sistaspirit3

New member
When I was a kid of about 5 I lived in Northern Victoria (Aust) where there was a locust plague. I caught a heap of locusts in a big cordial bottle and stuffed a whole lot of grass in there with them. I left the bottle outside at night when I came in from a storm starting. In the morning, I went out to the bottle and saw something amazing. The locusts had built a vertical circle with the grass and were marching around and around in their own intersecting circle, like the grass was a big tunnel. I was so excited I picked up the bottle, but the grass circle just collapsed and the locusts scattered and I never got to show anybody.

Last year there was an episode of Catalyst that said that locusts can march, they do it to sort of work out who isn't a proper "warrior" or something - any locust that doesn't march gets eaten by the other locusts.

Now what I would really like to know is, given there is a locust plague in Northern Victoria now (and I don't live there any more), whether any of you kids would give it a try - catch some locusts in a big plastic bottle, and put some grass to see what they do? I don't know whether the storm or the night were significant factors - I think there is a storm coming on the weekend?

I can't tell you how fantastic it would be to hear someone else got to see this - I've never forgotten.
PS Dear Teriann Chapple. You have put the same answer to about 4 questions today. Please don't clog the airwaves in order to get points. I don't think I need to add any more to my already detailed description.
 
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