African locusts are enormous, with their body length alone reaching seven or eight centiters, covering half of a palm.
They fall like raindrops, and when they land on thick animal hides, they can even make a sowhat dull sound.
Just hearing that incessant noise made the audience in front of the screen feel a hint of oppression.
It was hard to imagine the true spectacle of the severe locust plague described by Bi Fang, which was likened to dark clouds.
Bi Fang gently lifted a corner of the fur.
A sliver of dawn light snuck in through the gap between the animal hide and the ground, casting shadows and vividly revealing the savage reality outside.
Only then did the audience realize that the individual locusts had already ford a mass.
Around the outside of the hide, large palm-sized brown locusts huddled, dense and nurous, with a few trying to squeeze into the gap, only to be flicked away by the snap of Bi Fang's fingers.
Just the first glimpse was enough to make one's skin crawl.
If it felt oppressive just a mont ago, now it was downright suffocating.
Too dense, too big, too overwhelming.
The horror of a locust plague lies in its ability to blanket the sky and cover the earth.
The visual impact is comparable to that of an apocalyptic film.
And wherever it goes, not a blade of grass remains.
[I can't take it anymore, my fear of swarms is kicking in]
[I need a pair of clean eyes]
[That's disgusting]
[Damn, these creatures are HUGE]
[Are you sure they don't eat people?]
Harley's body was completely coiled up; every ti a locust landed on the hide and caused a slight tremor, it shuddered and leaned closer to Bi Fang, making the space under the hide even more cramped.
As a cheetah, it was witnessing such a terrifying scene for the first ti in its life, causing its eyes to bulge out wide and shimr with a dark gloss.
Bi Fang grasped the cheetah's head with his large hand, pressing it to the ground, and then couldn't help sneezing.
The creature had been leaning towards him the entire ti, and the long hair on its ears tickled his nostrils, making it uncomfortably itchy.
"After the locust plague begins, it must be controlled. In the past, the thods to control a locust plague were rather crude. The locusts laid their eggs in the soil, so people plowed the fields. The wingless nymphs clustered on the ground, so people set fires to burn them. Later, with chemical pesticides and airplanes available, people used planes to scatter pesticides from above."
"This thod is still commonly used today, but it is very costly. The severity of the locust plagues in recent years may also be sowhat related to Kenya's shortage of planes."
"Moreover, in the past two years, the global climate has been increasingly warm; last year even saw the occurrence of an El Niño event, which resulted in a surge in locust populations here."
Bi Fang organized his thoughts on the weather phenona of the past two years.
El Niño, which ans "The Child" in Spanish, specifically refers to the phenonon where a wide stretch of seawater in the eastern and central Equatorial Pacific exhibits a persistent abnormal warming.
Last year, the El Niño event continued up to the end of the year.
Africa is already arid, and locusts lay a huge number of eggs. With the temperature rising and heavy rainfall, the vegetation grew wildly, providing ideal conditions for the nymphs' growth.
Locusts need a dry environnt to lay eggs, but after laying eggs, they secrete a gel-like substance that makes the egg sacs very waterproof, allowing them to survive the rainy season without decreasing their hatching rate.
For this reason, when a great drought is followed by heavy rainfall just before locust eggs hatch, a locust plague is highly likely to occur.
Without sufficient control asures, and as locusts increase in number, lay more eggs, which in turn produce more locusts—it becos like a snowball effect, ultimately becoming an intractable problem.
The only thing that might limit them is a widespread reduction in vegetation, causing the locusts to starve due to lack of food.
"As I ntioned earlier, desert locusts spread far and wide, leaving their mark on much of the Earth."
"In fact, if it were not for the Himalayas blocking most of the locust swarms heading eastward, plus the northeast wind prevailing in Southeast Asia during the winter, and since desert locust migration mainly depends on the Indian Ocean monsoon, we too would be threatened by them."
In winter, the monsoon winds would blow north from the eastern coast of India but then they would circle back, blowing in the opposite direction, and the locusts would be swept back with them.
And in the sumr, the wind doesn't turn, it just blows straight down, so the locusts wouldn't make it over even more so.
"For African locusts to make it to our country, they have to fight against both wind and mountain ranges—double barriers—that's why we've been spared the trouble."
Bi Fang's tone revealed a rare note of relief.
[This is terrifying]
[Truly blessed by nature]
[That's incredible]
[Speaking of which, can locusts be eaten? With so many of them, there wouldn't be any food worries, right?]
[Let show you what being a foodie really ans]
[Indeed, raising more chickens and ducks could certainly help to so extent]
[Idiot, locusts beco poisonous when they swarm, don't you know that?]
[Who said you can't eat sothing just because it's poisonous? Do you even understand?]
[???]
"Cough, cough, let's not be so aggressive, everyone."
Netizens really can start arguing at any ti, Bi Fang thought to himself with a hint of inward scorn, and he explained without any change in his expression: "Actually, both sides are correct, locusts in a plague can be eaten, and also cannot be eaten."
"The one who ntioned chickens and ducks was indeed onto sothing, as they do have a certain utility, but the locusts that chickens and ducks eat are mostly in the nymph stage, and they prefer solitary locusts; it's quite an effective thod before the swarm forms, but once it becos a disaster, it's too late."
"This is related to a self-defense chanism in locusts; they know that once they switch to the gregarious phase, they'll beco easier prey for predators, so they release a chemical signal, benzonitrile, and once predators sll it, they don't really want to eat them anymore."
"Under the protection of benzonitrile, if predators still attack the locusts, the benzonitrile can transform into hydrogen cyanide."
"Hydrogen cyanide, as you can tell by the cyanide in its na, is toxic and quite potent."
[Then we can't eat them, can we?]
"Don't rush, let state the conclusion. Indeed, chickens and ducks shouldn't eat them, but humans can; there are factual reasons for this."
"When Yiseli had a locust plague, the locals actually quite enjoyed eating them. With a sh net, they could catch a bunch, throw them into hot oil, and fry them until golden brown. The neighbor's kid... cough, cough, that's the situation."
"It's not that we are immune to cyanide, nor is it a matter of toxicity and dosage. A single locust from a high-density swarm could cause mild poisoning symptoms."
"The real reason lies in the fact that hydrogen cyanide will volatilize and combust at high temperatures and does so very quickly. Animals won't eat cooked food, but humans do, therefore we can use cooking thods to eliminate the poison. It's not that we can't eat them at all; it's just risky as there might be so residue."
"So even if you want to eat locusts, it's best to capture those that haven't changed color yet, because their color traits are easier to distinguish, and you need to fry or roast them thoroughly to minimize the hydrogen cyanide content."
"Besides, you can't finish them all; eating them is just a drop in the bucket."
"I've previously ntioned the issue of locust density; a swarm of post-disaster locusts can have 3 million individuals per acre, weighing a total of six tons, which is an output of twelve thousand kilograms per acre. Rice crops nowadays don't even yield a thousand kilograms per acre! With a tenfold difference, how could humans possibly finish eating them?"
Humans mostly live in fixed residences, while locusts are completely free to roam.
After capturing locusts for a few days, there's nothing left of the crops, and the locusts quickly fly away.
That is the final outco.
Eating locusts can only solve a short-term food crisis.
Upon hearing this, the audience already started to sigh deeply.
No one expected that, even with all of humanity's progress to this day, we still couldn't handle these re locusts.
And so, Bi Fang and Harley lay on the ground, waiting quietly for the locusts to pass.
It wasn't until the sun hung high that the buzzing in the sky finally dissipated, leaving everything clear to the eyes and ears.
It was as if the dark cloud that had hovered over their heads had suddenly vanished.
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