Approximately half of the island of Madagascar is being visited by some very unwelcome guests: locusts!
These insects are not only unwelcome because they’re frightening when swarming like this, but because their visit means that they will devour all the crops, resulting in about 60% of the country’s residents going hungry.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) have called for $41 million to put an end to the plague and $22 million of that is required by June. If left unattended, by September two thirds of Madagascar will be infested.
This isn’t the first plague of locusts to swarm, this year. Earlier this month, the Egyptian city of Cairo and the Israeli village of Kmehin were swarmed by similar plagues.
DID YOU KNOW: Locusts are actually just grasshoppers that swarm. When grasshoppers face overcrowding, the tiny hairs on their legs are tickled causing a chemical reaction in their brains which results in swarming!