Desert locust, Schistocerca gregaria: male (on top) and female (below) mating

Locusts are the swarming phase of short-horned grasshoppers of the family Acrididae. These are species that can breed rapidly under suitable conditions and subsequently become gregarious and migratory. They form bands as nymphs and swarms as adults—both of which can travel great distances, rapidly stripping fields and greatly damaging crops.^[1]

The origin and apparent extinction of certain species of locust—some of which reached 6 inches (15 cm) in length—are unclear.^[2]

Locusts are edible insects, and are considered a delicacy in some countries and throughout history.^[3]

Locust species[link]

Desert locust

• Desert locust (Schistocerca gregaria), probably the best known owing to its very wide distribution (North Africa, Middle East, and Indian subcontinent) and its ability to migrate very widely.
• Migratory locust (Locusta migratoria)
• Red locust (Nomadracis septemfasciata)
• Australian plague locust (Chortoicetes terminifera)
• American desert locust (Schistocerca americana)
• Brown locust (Locustana pardalina)
• Moroccan locust (Dociostaurus maroccanus)
• Rocky Mountain locust (Melanoplus spretus) in North America had some of the largest recorded swarms, but died out in the late 19th century.

Though the female and the male look alike, they can be distinguished by looking at the end of their abdomens. The male has a boat-shaped tip, while the female has two serrated valves that can be either apart or kept together. These valves aid in the digging of the hole in which an egg pod is deposited. Desert locusts can measure roughly 75 millimetres (3.0 in) in length.

In addition, a number of "grasshopper" species such as the Senegalese grasshopper Oedaleus senegalensis, and the rice grasshopper Hieroglyphus daganensis (both from the Sahel), often display locust-like behaviour and change morphologically on crowding.

Swarming behaviour[link]

Locust from the 1915 Locust Plague

There is no taxonomic difference between locust and grasshopper species, and in English the term "locust" is used for grasshopper species that change morphologically and behaviourally on crowding, to form swarms or hopper bands (of immature stages). These changes, or phase polymorphism, were first identified by Sir Boris Petrovich Uvarov, who studied the desert locust, whose solitary and gregarious phases had previously been thought of as separate species. Charles Valentine Riley and Norman Criddle were also involved in the understanding and destructive control of locusts.

Research at Oxford University has identified that swarming behaviour is a response to overcrowding. Increased tactile stimulation of the hind legs causes an increase in levels of serotonin.^[4] This causes the locust to change colour, eat much more, and breed much more easily. The transformation of the locust to the swarming variety is induced by several contacts per minute over a four-hour period.^[5] It is estimated that the largest swarms have covered hundreds of square miles and consisted of many billions of locusts. Plagues of locusts appear in both the Bible and the Quran,^[6] including one of the biblical Plagues of Egypt, where locusts ate all the crops of Egypt.

Six stages of development, from newly hatched nymph to fully winged adult (Melanoplus sanguinipes)

In a paper in the 30 January 2009 edition of the AAAS magazine Science, Anstey, Rogers, et al. showed when desert locusts meet, their nervous systems release serotonin, which causes them to become mutually attracted, a prerequisite for swarming.^[7][8]

Locust swarms and locust control[link]

Swarming grasshoppers have short feelers, or antennae, and hearing organs on the abdomen (rear segment of the body). As winged adults, flying in swarms, locusts may be carried by the wind hundreds of miles from their breeding grounds; on landing they devour all vegetation. Locusts occur in nearly every continent.

The migratory locust (Locusta migratoria) ranges from Europe to China, and even small swarms may cover several square miles, and weigh thousands of tons. Control by spreading poisoned food among the bands is very effective, but it is cheaper to spray concentrated insecticide solutions from aircraft over the insects or the vegetation on which they feed. They eat the equivalent of their own weight in a day, and, flying at night with the wind, may cover some 500 kilometres (310 mi). The largest known swarm covered 513,000 km², comprising approximately 12.5 trillion insects and weighing 27.5 million tons.

A biological pesticide to control locusts was being tested across Africa by a multinational team in 1997.^[9] Dried fungal spores of a Metarhizium species sprayed in breeding areas pierce the locust exoskeleton on germination and invade the body cavity, causing death. The fungus is passed from insect to insect and persists in the area, making repeated treatments unnecessary.

Extinctions[link]

The extinction of the Rocky Mountain locust has been a source of puzzlement. Recent research suggests the breeding grounds of this insect in the valleys of the Rocky Mountains came under sustained agricultural development during the large influx of gold miners,^[2] destroying the underground eggs of the locust.^[10][11]

Locusts as experimental models[link]

Locusts are used as models in many fields of biology, especially in the field of olfactory, visual and locomotor neurophysiology. It is one of the organisms for which scientists have obtained detailed data on information processing in the olfactory pathway of organisms. It is suitable for the above purposes because of the robustness of the preparation for electrophysiological experiments and ease of growing them.

The International LUBILOSA Programme was set up to find methods of nonchemical control of locusts. Not only did it successfully develop the mycoinsecticide 'Green Muscle', but over its 12-year period, Programme staff also contributed a large number of scientific papers on subjects as diverse as fungal production, (bio)pesticide application, socio-economics and thermal ecology. Locusts thus provided a valuable "test bed" for better biological understanding and developing new technologies for microbial pesticides.

Related uses of the word "locust"[link]

Egyptian grasshopper Anacridium aegyptum

The word "locust" is derived from the Vulgar Latin locusta, which was originally used to refer to various types of crustaceans and insects; English "lobster" is derived from Anglo-Saxon loppestre, which may come from Latin locusta.^[12] Spanish has mostly preserved the original Latin usage, since the cognate term langosta can be used to refer both to a variety of lobster-like crustaceans and to the swarming grasshopper, while semantic confusion is avoided by employing qualifiers such as de la tierra (of the land) when referring to grasshoppers, del mar and del rio (of the sea/of the river) when referring to lobsters and crayfish, respectively.^[13] French presents an inverse case; during the 16th century, the word sauterelle (literally "little hopper") could mean either grasshopper or lobster (sauterelle de mer).^[14] In contemporary French usage, langouste is used almost exclusively to refer to the crustacean (two insect exceptions being the langouste de désert and the langouste de Provence).^[15][16] In certain regional varieties of English, "locust" can refer to the large swarming grasshopper, the cicada (which may also swarm), and rarely to the praying mantis ("praying locust").^[17]

The use of "locust" in English as a synonym for "lobster" has no grounding in anglophone tradition, and most modern instances of its use are usually calques of foreign expressions (e.g. "sea locust" as mistranslation of langouste de mer).^[18] There are, however, various species of crustaceans whose regional names include the word "locust". Thenus orientalis, for example, is sometimes referred to as the flathead locust lobster (its French name, cigale raquette, literally "raquet cicada," is yet another instance of the locust-cicada-lobster nomenclatural connection). Similarly, certain types of amphibians and birds are sometimes called "false locusts" in imitation of the Greek pseud(o)acris, a scientific name sometimes given to a species because of its perceived cricket-like chirping.^[19] Often, the linguistic nondifferentiation of animals not only regarded by science as different species, but that also often exist in radically different environments, is the result of culturally perceived similarities between organisms, as well as of abstract associations formed within a particular group's mythology and folklore (see Cicada mythology). On a linguistic level, these cases also exemplify an extensively documented tendency, in many languages, towards conservatism and economy in neologization, with some languages historically only allowing for the expansion of meaning within already existing word-forms.^[20] Also of note is the fact that all three so-called locusts (the grasshopper, the cicada, and the lobster) have been a traditional source of food for various peoples around the world (see entomophagy).

The word "locust" has, at times, been employed controversially in English translations of Ancient Greek and Latin natural histories, as well as of Hebrew and Greek Bibles; such ambiguous renderings prompted the 17th-century polymath Thomas Browne to include in the Fifth Book of his Pseudodoxia Epidemica an essay entitled Of the Picture of a Grasshopper, it begins:

Browne revisited the controversy in his Miscellany Tracts (1684), wherein he takes pains (even citing Aristotle's Animalia) to both indicate the relationship of locusts to grasshoppers and to affirm their like disparateness from cicadas:

Compound words involving "locust" have also been used by anglophone translators as calques of archaic Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, or other language names for animals; the resulting formations have, just as in the case of the Brownian grasshopper/cicada controversy, been, at times, a cause of lexical ambiguity and false polysemy in English. An instance of this appears in a translation of Pliny included in J.W. McCrindle's book Ancient India as Described in Classical Literature, where an Indian gem is said by the Roman historian to have a "surface [that] is even redder than the shells of the sea-locust."^[23]

Human consumption of locusts[link]

Skewered locusts in Beijing, China

Several cultures throughout the world are known to consume insects. Even Islamic and Jewish dietary laws, which prohibit the consumption of other insects, allow locusts and crickets to be eaten.^[24][25][26] See also: Kosher locust.

Professor Arnold van Huis at Wageningen University in Netherlands says locusts can produce 1 kg of protein from 2 kg of fodder^{[dubious – discuss]}, compared to a cow needing 10 kg of fodder to produce the same amount of protein. Also of benefit, locusts do not produce greenhouse gases and do not require antibiotics.^[27]

See also[link]

• Desert locust
• LUBILOSA
• 1915 Locust Plague
• 2004 Locust Outbreak
• Australian Plague Locust Commission (APLC)
• Kosher locust
• List of locust species
• Live food

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Alexandra M. Wagner (Winter 2008). "Grasshoppered: America's response to the 1874 Rocky Mountain locust invasion". Nebraska History 89 (4): 154–167. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Caelifera

• Visual neuron of the locust, Ri Channel video, October 2011
• FAO Locust Watch
• FAO EMPRES
• Desert Locust Meteorological Monitoring at Sahel Resources
• Locust Video
• USAID Supplemental Environmental Assessment of the Eritrean Locust Control Program
• USAID Supplemental Environmental Assessment: Pakistan Locust Control Programs, August 1993

Justin Pearson (born August 20, 1975) is a vocalist and bassist known for his prolific music career, playing in a number of San Diego-based noise rock, punk and grindcore bands, as well as his record label Three One G Records. Starting off in the punk outfit Struggle in 1994, ensuing projects included Swing Kids, The Locust, The Crimson Curse, Holy Molar, Head Wound City, Ground Unicorn Horn, Brain Tourniquet, All Leather, and Retox. He has collaborated with Jimmy LaValle, Gabe Serbian, Mark McCoy, Wesley Eisold, Karen O, Nick Zinner, Jordan Blilie, Cody Votolato, The Bloody Beetroots, Vegamoore and members of Bastard Noise, among others.

Pearson has been cited as an influence for his work in Swing Kids and The Locust on the genres of noise rock,^[1] powerviolence, and what has been dubbed "freak punk."^[2]

Early life[link]

Justin Pearson was born on August 20, 1975 and initially raised in Phoenix, Arizona by his parents.^[3] He was a single child^[4] and went by the nickname J.P.^[5] Pearson has stated he liked music and the aesthetics of rock music since he was little.^[3][6]

Around ten his mother's cousin let him borrow a guitar, and he eventually moved onto bass.^[3] He also began skateboarding and listening to the Thrasher skate/rock compilation tapes with bands like Septic Death, the Sex Pistols, The Misfits,^[4] and Suicidal Tendencies. He has stated he was especially drawn towards the music that touched on social politics.^[6] Pearson also got into break dancing and early rap like Run DMC and The Beastie Boys, as well as developing an interest in metal. In Phoenix he lived a couple blocks away from some of the bandmembers of Slayer.^[3]

When Pearson was twelve years old his father was murdered.^[4] Later that year in 1987, Pearson and his mother moved to San Diego, California,^[5] specifically Clairemont.^[7] His mother's new boyfriend moved with them,^[4] and Pearson has stated that the man was physically and emotionally abusive towards both of them. At his new middle school he also faced death threats and attacks from skinhead students.^[5]

Pearson continued to play guitar, taking a few lessons before teaching himself how to play the instrument with friends.^[3] At age 13 he met future collaborator Eric Allen.^[8] He met and befriended Matt Anderson of End of the Line at the age of 14.^[7]

Pearson was soon exposed to the unique San Diego hardcore punk scene^[6] and began attending all the all-ages shows he could,^[7] discovering influential local bands such as Amenity, Heroin, Forced Down, Drive Like Jehu, and Crash Worship.^[5] He also attended metal shows at house parties, eventually discovering Che Café,^[7] an all-ages venue on the campus of UC San Diego.^[6] The Che frequently hosted underground metal and punk bands. At the venue he saw shows by Blast, Chain of Strength, Carcass, Chumbawumba, Crossed Out, Inside Out, Filth, and Sleep.^[7] Pearson befriended a number of the musicians,^[5] stating "I'd go [to the Che] and talk to all the bands. They were really down-to-earth people, but they had this art that was just mind-blowing. When they played they would turn into ax murderers on instruments."^[6]

Early music career[link]

Struggle[link]

At age fifteen he founded the band Struggle with friends he had met through high school and local concerts. The different members' taste in music was diverse, but they were all fans and friends of bands like Born Against, Downcast, Unbroken, and other hardcore punk groups.^[7] The band went on its first tour that year in 1991, and Pearson has since described how he saw his bandmates as his adopted family.^[4]

At the age of 16,^[4] his home situation escalated to Pearson having to fight back against his mother's boyfriend, and he was kicked out of the house. He stayed in school and graduated, living off social security checks from his father's death. When not in school he also continued to tour with Struggle,^[5] and while touring they met bands such as Filrth and Rorschach, and Blatz.^[5] Struggle released recordings on Undertow Records, Ebullition Records, and Bloodlink Records, and disbanded in 1994.^[8]

Swing Kids[link]

After the dissolution of Struggle in 1994, Pearson co-founded the band Swing Kings, an early San Diego hardcore and noise rock group. He formed the band along with Eric Allen of Unbroken, Jimmy LaValle of The Album Leaf, Jose Palafox, John Brady, and Michelle Maskovich. Pearson served as vocalist and sole lyricist, and has described the themes as largely influenced by social political issues.^[8] Their music was characterized by Pearson's spoken/screamed vocals and their melodic/chaotic rhythms and song structures. The group disbanded in 1997.

Swing Kids are also credited with the unintentional creation of the fad "Spock Rock" during the mid 1990s; largely due to many of their fans emulating Pearson's fashion sense and hair style. Pearson has expressed dislike of the term.^[5]

Three One G[link]

Also in 1994^[9] Pearson founded the independent label Three One G, or 31G Records. The first album released on the new label was the 1994 single "And / Fall On Proverb" by San Diego metalcore band Unbroken. The second release was a reissue of the recent debut album from Swing Kids.^[10] He funded the label with the financial aid he was receiving from the community college he was attending,^[7] and has stated he was partly inspired to start 31G by Vinyl Communications and Gravity Records.^[5] In 1998 Allysia Edwards joined with Pearson as a partner at the label, and their annual output began to increase.^[10]

The Locust[link]

Starting in 1994, he became bassist and joint vocalist for the new band The Locust,^[11] formed with musicians such as Gabe Serbian and Joey Karam. The Locust was initially a powerviolence project whose first release was a split with genre pioneers Man Is the Bastard. Later releases incorporated synthesizers and became increasingly theatrical.^[12] The band regularly played shows in all-ages punk clubs in Los Angeles and San Diego,^[6] usually donning insect costumes.^[12]

Pearson performing with The Locust

The Locust is Pearson's best-known work, and became known for their unique mix of grindcore speed and aggression,^[13] mathcore complexity, and new wave weirdness. According to Pearson, "I just want to change the way people look at music or maybe just destroy it in general."^[12] Stylus described the band's sound as "Relentless blitzkriegs of high velocity noise, skinny tie keyboards and bloody screaming that often last less than a minute, Locust songs are tightly-wound, dynamic and bizarre expressions of frustration and hatred whose intensity and creativity are currently unparalleled in punk rock."^[13] The band has also been praised by Dave Lombardo of Slayer, who said "There's a band called The Locust, and their music hits me now like D.R.I. hit me in the early '80s".^[14]

While with The Locust the band and Pearson organized a number of "gender-baiting incidents," including Pearson and drummer Gabe Serbian staging a fake same-sex marriage while on tour in Hawaii.^[6] At one point in 2003, Scott Beiben, the owner of the record label Bloodlink, called up The Jerry Springer Show and orchestrated a hoax^[8] for Pearson to appear on the show as a "rock-star slut." Pearson wore a T-shirt for The Locust during the appearance, which culminated in a kiss with Beiben.^[6] Pearson later stated "I was beat up during a commercial break by one of the 'security guards' pretty bad for blowing snot on the carpet."^[8]

Crimson Curse[link]

Founded in 1998,^[8] The Crimson Curse was Pearson's first group to include keyboards and elements of deathrock. According to Pearson the band was an attempt to return a sense of lunacy and excitement to the hardcore punk scene, which had begun to appear dry and pedantic to Pearson. Pearson says he modeled the group on the Dead Boys.^[8] The band also included Jimmy LaValle of The Album Leaf and Jesse F Keeler of Death from Above 1979/ MSTRKRFT. Pearson has stated "we got all these fucked up kids together. Made some punk music. That was it. But as a band we didn't get very far." A review of the band's first demo stated "The recording was horrible, but was enough for me to realize that they sounded godlike."^[8]

Later career[link]

The Holy Molar

Pearson began to frequently collaborate with other musicians on Three One G, joining as bassist for the band Holy Molar from 2001 to 2007; in addition to Locust members Pearson, Gabe Serbian, and Bobby Bray, the group included Ron Avila (formerly of Antioch Arrow) and Mark McCoy (formerly of Charles Bronson and Das Oath).

Some Girls

Some Girls, founded in 2002, was another Three One G supergroup that played in a hybrid of mathcore, grindcore with Justin again on bass and vocals.^[15] and noise rock. They released several albums, including in 2005 the The DNA Will Have Its Say EP. Pearson played bass, and Karen O of the band Yeah Yeah Yeahs performed guest vocals on the title track. The band's breakup was announced in a Punknews article, published October 23, 2007.^[16]

Head Wound City

From 2002 to 2005 he played bass in Head Wound City. Along with Pearson, consists of Jordan Blilie and Cody Votolato of The Blood Brothers, Nick Zinner from Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Gabe Serbian, of The Locust and Holy Molar.^[11]

Bastard Noise

Bastard Noise is a noise music group that Pearson was a part of in 2008. They recorded the full-length Rogue Astronaut with Bobby Bray and Justin Pearson providing vocals on "Tyranny Beyond Earth Eplilogue."

Current projects[link]

All Leather[link]

All Leather, his current band, was founded in 2008. It consists of Pearson on vocals, Nathan Joyner on guitar, Jung Sing on drums, and Eric Livingston on synthesizers.They released their debut EP Hung Like A Horse on Dim Mak Records. In August 2009 they released a remix album entitled Hung Like a Donut, also on Dim Mak. On September 12, 2010, All Leather won the San Diego Music Awards "Best Hard Rock Album" category for their album When I Grow Up, I Wanna Fuck Like a Girl.

Others[link]

From 2008 he also been a member of Leg Lifters, which consists of Pearson and Nathan Joyner of All Leather. Leg Lifters is considered a production team. They produce a radio show with Vestal Radio, web video episodes, and remixes.

Pearson was featured on the Vegamoore song "They Keep on Fucking" www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uxm87hUsn6M, Designer Drugs song "Dead Meat." Pearson is a featured vocalist on a song, "Romborama" from The Bloody Beetroots debut LP, Romborama. He toured in Australia with The Bloody Beetroots in 2009.

By 2011 Pearson had co-founded and was touring with the band Retox,^[1] a band with Gabe Serbian of the Locust, Mike Crain from The Festival of Dead Deer, and Thor Dickey. In late 2011 Retox has toured again changing Gabe Serbian with Brian Evans as drummer giving also a show with Vegamoore in Italy featured Justin Pearson at the vocals and Brian Evans at the drums www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j8Z6x98hUA. ^[17]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• "Justin Pearson interview". Skatepunk. http://www.skatepunk.net/articles/jpiview.html.  (March 2000)
• "An Interview With Justin Pearson". San Diego Punk. http://www.sandiegopunk.com/interviews/justinpearson.php. (October 2005)
• "The Locust: Interview with Justin Pearson". Truth Explosion. http://www.truthexplosion.com/live/interviews/interviews.php?id=162.  (February 2007)
• "Interview with Justin Pearson". A Coat of Red Paint in Hell. http://acoatofredpaintinhell.wordpress.com/2007/08/14/situation-of-noise-an-interview-with-justin-pearson-of-the-locust/.  (August 2007)
• "Interview with Justin Pearson of The Locust". Last Blog on Earth. http://lastblogonearth.com/2009/01/09/interview-with-justin-pearson-of-the-locust/.  (January 2009)

External links[link]

• Official website

Media

• YouTube: Pearson on Jerry Springer Part 1 / Part 2
• 106FM Jerusalem: Interview with Pearson Part 1 / Part 2