How do locust reproduce

However, an aggregated egg deposition could occur also without the attendance of pheromones if favourable places for egg deposition are rare and scattered throughout the desert or semidesert landscape.

In this case females with mature eggs would assemble on rare microstructures with sufficient wet soil. Which factors mediate an aggregated egg laying of females, be it pheromones or favourable soil conditions, shall be experimentally settled for several locust species in this project.

Jump directly to: To the beginning of the text Jump over the navigation , Main navigation , Themes navigation , To the search , Up. Current language: English Wechseln zur deutschen Sprachversion. Jump directly to: To the beginning of the text Jump over the navigation , Main navigation , Themes navigation , To the search , More settings. Farmers throughout East Africa now face food shortages, as the plague consumes both crops in the field and in storage. Locusts are actually special kinds of grasshoppers known for their gregariousness, and not in a good way.

Normally solitarious a word that locust biologists made up, by the way , they change color and grow bigger muscles as they gather into massive clouds, rolling across landscapes and devastating crops. Jekyll and Mr. The kind of desert locust currently plaguing East Africa is in fact named for this tendency to socialize: Schistocerca gregaria.

But why does the desert locust go gregarious, when the vast majority of grasshopper species remain solitarious? That might have something to do with the dry environments these species call home. Desert locusts only lay eggs in moist soil, to keep them from drying out. When heavy rains come in to saturate the desert, locusts—ever the opportunists—breed like mad and fill the soil with their eggs, perhaps 1, per square meter of soil. As soon as things start getting crowded, desert locusts become gregarious and migrate away in search of more food.

This sudden crowding releases serotonin in their central nervous systems that makes locusts more sociable and promotes rapid movements and more varied appetite. When rains return—producing moist soil and abundant green plants—those environmental conditions create a perfect storm: Locusts begin to produce rapidly and become even more crowded together. Locusts can even change color and body shape when they move into this phase.

Their endurance increases and even their brains get larger. Locusts can become gregarious at any point in their lifecycle. On hatching, a locust emerges wingless as a nonflying nymph, which can be either solitary or gregarious.

A nymph can also change between behavior phases before becoming a flying adult after 24 to 95 days. Locust swarms are typically in motion and can cover vast distances—some species may travel 81 miles or more a day. They can stay in the air for long periods, regularly taking nonstop trips across the Red Sea. In , a swarm flew from northwest Africa to Great Britain, while in , another made the lengthy trek from West Africa to the Caribbean, a trip of more than 3, miles in just 10 days.

Locust swarms devastate crops and cause major agricultural damage, which can lead to famine and starvation. Locusts occur in many parts of the world, but today locusts are most destructive in subsistence farming regions of Africa. The desert locust Schistocerca gregaria is a notorious species. Found in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, this species inhabits an area of about six million square miles, or 30 countries, during a quiet period. During a plague, when large swarms descend upon a region, however, these locusts can spread out across some 60 countries and cover a fifth of Earth's land surface.

Desert locust plagues threaten the economic livelihood of a tenth of humans. A desert locust swarm can be square miles in size and pack between 40 and 80 million locusts into less than half a square mile. Fledgling is an intermediate stage that occurs between the nymph and adult periods. Their life cycle period varies depending on the species of the locust. During laying, the sperm is released from storage to fertilize the eggs as they pass through the oviduct.

Female locusts lay eggs in suitable locations shortly after mating -- moist sand soils -- according to Australian Ministry of Agriculture. Female locusts make holes in the soil using their abdomen tip and lay eggs in a pod-like structure shielded by foam.

The holes range between 2 and 10 centimeters in depth, according to Real Science. The foam covering secures the eggs from predation, dehydration and contamination.

The eggs hatch within 10 to 20 days depending on temperature and moisture conditions.