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Locusts Swarm Ethiopia

Submitted by LiveScience Staff

posted: 23 June 2009 04:21 pm ET

: Desert locusts marching in a swarm after reaching a critical density and becoming an orderly, collective plague. Credit: Gabriel A. Miller

Locusts are destroying crops in seven regions of Ethiopia, where people rely on subsistence agriculture.

What causes these Biblical-sounding events? Why a swarm? Scientists discovered a few years back that at low densities, the insects were unorganized and went their separate ways. But when the group's density increased, the bugs fell into an orderly line and began to follow the same direction.

Such "collective motion," which spells doom for a crop, is common also among ants, birds and fish.

Read full story at Yahoo

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