A dead locust sits on a tree branch. Desert locusts can grow to about four inches long and live for three to five months. Their life cycle consists of three phases: egg, hopper, and adult.

"The important thing is to respond quickly if there's likely to be a big locust upsurge, before it causes a major crop loss. Huge swarms can lead to really desperate situations where people could ...

Growing risks of a potentially large Moroccan locust outbreak sweeping across northern Afghanistan’s eight provinces, the country’s wheat basket, will have devastating consequences for ...

The desert locust (Schistocerca gregaria), which is found in more than 65 of the world’s poorest countries, normally lives a solitary lifestyle in the deserts between West Africa and India.

But drone technology is offering up solutions. In January, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned rising locust numbers in the Horn of Africa presented an “extremely ...

"The desert locust genome provides key information that could be a complete game-changer for the developing world, and a huge economic step forward for countries struggling to feed their populations.

"Although giant nets, flamethrowers, lasers and huge vacuums have been proposed in the past, these are not in use for locust control," the U.N. agency says. "People and birds often eat locusts but ...

A desert locust like this - a type of grasshopper ... the insects change colour and form groups that can develop into huge flying swarms of ravenous marauding pests. Such swarms of locusts ...

A new tool that predicts the behavior of desert locust populations will help national agencies to manage huge swarms before they devastate food crops in Africa and Asia. Desert locusts typically ...