The Prefect Swarm

Narrator: Damage from swarms of locusts can reach disastrous proportions. A single
swarm of desert locusts can consume over 70,000 metric tons of vegetation a day.
There is however, one continent that’s locust-free: North America.

Interestingly enough, this wasn’t always true. For hundreds of years, the Rocky
Mountain locust was a common pest in the American West. Back in the mid-1800s,
thousands of pioneers journeyed across the U.S. in search of free land and new
opportunities. They settled on the frontier of the western states, and began to farm
the land intensively, growing corn and other crops.

Then, in 1875, out of nowhere, a rare combination of air currents, drought, and basic
biology produced the right conditions for an unthinkable event, the worst storm ever
recorded, the “perfect swarm.” It came over the horizon like a strange, dark cloud.
Not millions, not billions, but trillions of insects, sweeping through the land like a
living tornado. Those who saw the incredible event and survived never forgot what
they witnessed.

The swarm came together over the state of Texas, and soon moved quickly across
the frontier in a huge destructive cloud that was nearly 3,000 kilometers long. The
storm spread north towards North Dakota. The locusts eventually went as far west
as the Rocky Mountains, leaving a path of devastation and destruction wherever
they went.

An account from one person who observed the swarm described the locust storm.
The locusts came down from the sky like hail. Frightened people ran screaming into
their homes as the locusts’ claws dug into their skin and hung upon their clothing.
They heard sharp cracks as the insects came underfoot. The large locusts were
everywhere, looking with hungry eyes turning this way and that. Their bodies
blocked the sun, bringing darkness along with the destruction.

Crop damages were absolutely astonishing. If such destruction were to happen today
it would cost an estimated 116 billion U.S. dollars, more than the most costly
hurricane in American history. And then, something remarkable happened . . . the
Rocky Mountain locust simply vanished.

At the University of Wyoming, entomologist Dr. Jeff Lockwood has spent over a

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decade investigating why the Rocky Mountain locust disappeared.

Dr. Jeff Lockwood, University of Wyoming: There was probably more locusts in the
largest swarm than there are stars in the Milky Way—trillions. Not only is something
of that scale and magnitude and power gone, but it’s gone within a few years. It’s
not as if we had a tremendous series of earthquakes or tidal waves or forest fires.
And so it doesn’t make sense that it could’ve gone extinct. There’s no reason for it to
have done so. It’s a great mystery.

Narrator: It’s a mystery that Lockwood is determined to solve. Whatever wiped out
the Rocky Mountain locust changed American history. Exactly what could have
destroyed a plague nearly 3,000 kilometers long? Lockwood is on the case. He starts
the investigation with the victim itself. Unfortunately, very few locust specimens
exist, and those that do are often in bad condition.

Dr. Lockwood: So what we have is a body of evidence of the victim in its dying
moments, alright . . . but we don’t know what the life of the victim looked like when
it was flourishing. The next opportunity we have for a major set of clues is locked up
in the ice of the glaciers of the Rocky Mountains.

Narrator: Lockwood is headed to Knife Point Glacier, Wyoming, not far from
Yellowstone National Park. For centuries, strong winds would sweep swarms of
locusts high into the mountains, where they would freeze to death.

Dr. Lockwood: These glaciers serve as both traps and sort of icy tombs for the Rocky
Mountain locust. Were we looking at a long, slow death, or were we looking at a
sudden demise?

Narrator: By extracting DNA samples from specimens frozen over a period of time,
Lockwood may be able to specify exactly what caused the extinction of the insects.
The good news for the expedition is that there could be locust specimens anywhere,
but the bad news is that “anywhere” includes thousands of square meters covered
with snow and ice. Then, on one of the steeper parts of the mountain, Lockwood
sees something.

Dr. Lockwood: Check it out!

Lockwood’s Colleague: A whole body?

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Dr. Lockwood: It looks like it.

Lockwood’s Colleague: Head, thorax, and abdomen?

Dr. Lockwood: You can see the wings.

Narrator: Lockwood will take the locusts back to his laboratory to examine them
more closely. If they’re the right species, they could help solve one of the greatest
extinction mysteries of our time.

Dr. Lockwood: To get my hands on the body, in terms of this murder mystery, was
critically important.

Narrator: A look under the microscope reveals the signs.

Dr. Lockwood: At that moment, I knew that we had the Rocky Mountain locust.

Narrator: It’s an exact match. They’re the same species of locusts that once
devastated the American plains.

Lockwood’s study of the Rocky Mountain locust has told him more and more about
this odd insect. They seem to have split personalities. On one hand, as members of
the grasshopper family, they’re generally shy and remain alone. But when annoyed
in just the right way, the once gentle locust changes completely into some kind of
destructive monster. They change color and their wings and legs grow longer.
Eventually, they become more aggressive and swarm, whereby they become a kind
of living, breathing weapon of mass destruction.

Dr. Lockwood: Nobody’s in charge. There’s no leader, there’s nobody out in front.

Narrator: Back in the laboratory, the locusts are revealing their secrets. The DNA test
results are back and they’ve indicated one certain fact: The Rocky Mountain locust
didn’t decline over a long period of time.

Dr. Lockwood: It was not sort of a death by old age. In fact, what we’re looking at is
a very sudden sort of “bolt out of the blue” disappearance. There’s nothing in the
genetic course of this species that would lead us to believe that it was in its last days.

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Narrator: Some other force must have been responsible for destroying the plague,
and Lockwood is determined to find it.

Dr. Lockwood: I began to realize that we’ve been looking at the wrong scale. If we
want to find out perhaps what eliminated the Rocky Mountain locust, what we
should be looking for is what was happening to the species at the time of its weakest
link.

Narrator: Now, after years of research, Lockwood may finally be able to solve the
mystery of why the Rocky Mountain locust disappeared. It turns out that the Rocky
Mountain locust gathered in one particular region to lay its eggs. In the 1800s, that
region was in the river valleys of the Rocky Mountains.

Dr. Lockwood: It turned out that agriculture was booming in these river valleys in
the late 1800s.

Narrator: The gold and silver industries were booming as well. The major nesting
area of the rocky Mountain locust had become a busy and overcrowded place;
therefore, conditions there would certainly have had an effect on any species.

Dr. Lockwood: The killer of the Rocky Mountain locust turns out to be us. The
pioneer agriculturalist of the Rocky Mountain West in the late 1800s is the killer of
the Rocky Mountain locust.

Narrator: As farms appeared in the river valleys to feed the miners, the farmers
plowed up the fields and stamped out the delicate eggs that had been laid by the
great swarm. By not allowing the eggs to mature into full-grown locusts, the species
was entirely destroyed at its weakest—when the insects were just eggs. The only
extinction of a pest species in agricultural history was in fact an accident.

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