I didn’t get a photo, but it was basically as you might imagine… as in a cartoon or exaggerated CG shot from a film. We were driving just 50km south of Tana along National Route 7 when I saw this black cloud over the hill to the left. I mentioned it to my friend and he said we should roll up the windows.

As we approached, the locusts started to hit the windshield. I got a good look at one as it languished on the window, but still no photo. My friend explained that they consume all vegetation in their path and move on. The area looked green enough to me, so there was no obvious evidence of their wrath, but I can see how they could be a serious nuisance!

Apparently such locust problems are not so common globally. A quick search online indicates that serious locust problems have struck here-and-there or now-and-again, but the current problem in Madagascar attracted the attracted the attention of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) because if it is not stopped early, it can lead to years of food insecurity among affected areas.

Bonus: Locusts are actually just grasshoppers that get really excited, overbreed, and swarm together in a somewhat atypical way. Once they get going, they almost behave like another species, but they are really just grasshoppers.