Insects turn cannival

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Scientists Baffled by Insects That Eat Everything in Their Path -- Including Each Other

 

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/DyeHard/story?id=2124982 & page=1 & CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

 

 

 

Scientists are baffled by what causes Mormon crickets in the west to swarm and cannibalize each other. (AP Photo)

 

 

 

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June 28, 2006 -- Millions

of Mormon crickets are on the move again in the Western United States,

devouring everything in their path as they march in unison across wide

swaths of land from Idaho to Oregon.

If you're a farmer, it's an invasion from hell.

 

But if you're a Mormon cricket, the farmers have it easy. The

farmers aren't facing starvation, and they're not likely to get eaten

by other members of their family. But that's what it's like this time

of the year for the insects, according to new research that explains

why they engage in behaviors that are unusual, even for insects.

It turns out that the insects form huge " bands " to protect

themselves from predators, and they march across the countryside in a

desperate search for protein, according to Patrick Lorch, an insect

behaviorist at Kent State University. Although their wings are too

feeble for them to fly, they can move more than a mile in a single day,

driven partly by a fear of cannibalism.

Lorch is one of many scientists who have tried to figure out why

Mormon crickets, which aren't really crickets (they're katydids) behave

the way they do. In the high country, like the Rockies, they act like

they are supposed to act, eating other insects, mating and staying

pretty much to themselves.

But in the sagebrush-covered plains, it's a different story. They

sometimes form huge bands, numbering in the millions, with more than

100 crickets per square yard. And for reasons that have long puzzled

scientists, they march in one direction, climbing over everything in

their paths, devouring crops and creating a huge splatter of goo

whenever they cross a highway.

Why do they do that? Lorch and several other scientists addressed

that question while he was a postdoctoral researcher at the University

of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. They actually attached tiny radio

transmitters to the backs of some of the crickets so they could monitor

their behavior. The crickets are pretty large, measuring up to 2 inches

long, but they weigh only about half as much as a nickel, so even a

tiny transmitter was a heavy load. But it paid off, at least for the

scientists.