Page 223 - (DK) I Can’t Believe It! 2

IT CAN’T BE TRUE! 221

FAST FACTS
There are 13 desert locusts for Red-billed quelea form the One megacolony of Argentine
every person on Earth. They form biggest bird flocks. Numbers ants stretches 3,700 miles
today’s biggest swarms, up to on the African plains can reach (6,000 km) along Europe’s
460 sq miles 10 billion. Mediterranean coast.
2
(1,200 km )
in area.

How big is

a locust

swarm?

In 1875, 12.5 trillion
Rocky Mountain locusts
North
America descended on an area of
198,000 sq miles (513,000
km²) in the western US.

EXTINCT SPECIES
Fast wings for flight

The density of locusts
in this biggest-ever Strong legs
swarm led a witness for jumping
to report that their
“bodies hid the Sun Native to North America,
and made darkness.” the Rocky Mountain
grasshopper (Melanoplus
spretus) that swarmed in
1875 had died out by 1903.

US_220-221_309600_Locust.indd 221 19/12/17 3:48 pm