As promised.....locusts!

We (Efrat, Haddas and I) went looking for locusts. Locust swarms had moved up from Africa towards Israel. We'd been told that this only happened every 50 years of so, so of course we had to go searching!

We had heard that the locust swarms had made it north from Eilat where they had been seen earlier this week. We looked in a few different spots, and weren't expecting much luck because it was cold and rainy. But then..... Locusts!



It started raining much heavier and the locusts hid in the leaves.


Finally it began raining hard enough that we decided we'd seen locusts, so we were allowed to leave.

A few days later we decided to try again--we wanted to see a swarm!

The day didn't get off to a good start......our highway had been flooded by the rain!


Or you could say that it had gotten off to a good start--it was exciting to see the flood!

But, we found a new route, and found a parks officer who told us of a field close by which they were planning on spraying that morning because the locusts had arrived the last afternoon.

We went there and were greeted by locusts in the trees around the field.

It was still pretty early in the morning, and fairly cool, so the locusts weren't moving too much...

Except for this on--doesn't it look like it's dancing?


There were massive piles of locusts under all the trees. We thought they were all dead, and couldn't figure out what had happened.


Turns out that the locusts weren't dead--just cold. As the day started warming up they started to move......not that appealing a thought, eh?


In addition to the locusts we also found a praying mantis nymph, which was a stark contrast against the bed of locusts.


And then we found the entire praying mantis family (probably not a real family--but a male, female and a nymph nonetheless).


Why are we collecting handfuls of locusts? Because.....we're biologists!