Rocky Mountain locust
Rocky Mountain locust | |
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1902 illustration | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Arthropoda |
Class: | Insecta |
Order: | Orthoptera |
Suborder: | Caelifera |
Family: | Acrididae |
Genus: | Melanoplus |
Species: | †M. spretus
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Binomial name | |
†Melanoplus spretus (Walsh, 1866)
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Synonyms | |
The Rocky Mountain locust (Melanoplus spretus) is an
Less than 30 years later, the species was apparently extinct. The last recorded sighting of a live specimen was in 1902 in southern Canada.[6] Because a creature so ubiquitous was not expected to become extinct, very few specimens were ever collected (though a few preserved remains have been found in Knife Point Glacier, Wyoming and Grasshopper Glacier, Montana).[7]
Rocky Mountain locusts were a part of the diet of the
Taxonomy
The species name was formally published with the Latin binomial Caloptenus spretus in 1866 by
The species is reported to have descended from the Rocky Mountains to the prairie in large numbers only in certain years, particularly in dry seasons, following westward wind currents. Outbreaks usually lasted two consecutive years. Although a great number of eggs were laid on the prairie during outbreak years, individuals hatched from these eggs usually did not thrive, a condition that has been attributed to the lack of adaptation of this species to prairie habitats.[13] A 2004 molecular phylogenetic study that used mitochondrial DNA from specimens obtained from museums and fragments preserved in frozen glacial deposits confirms the placement in the genus Melanoplus and the distinctiveness as a species (ie not a migratory form of an extant species). It also identified the closest living relative as Melanoplus bruneri rather than M. sanguinipes as had been earlier surmised.[14]
Distribution and habitat
The Rocky Mountain locust occurred along both sides of the Rocky Mountains and in most of the prairie areas. Breeding in sandy areas and thriving in hot and dry conditions, it has been hypothesized that they may have depended on the tall grass prairie plants during drier spells. The destruction of the prairie habitat and the incursion of new flora and fauna along with agricultural practices may have led to the extinction of the species.[15] Large numbers of grasshoppers including a large number of Rocky Mountain locusts entombed in the ice in the Rocky Mountains gave their name to the Grasshopper Glacier.
Extinction
Rocky Mountain locusts caused farm damage in Maine from 1743 to 1756 and Vermont in 1797–1798.[16] The locusts became more of a problem in the 19th century, as farming expanded westward into the grasshoppers' favored habitat. Outbreaks of varying severity emerged in 1828, 1838, 1846, and 1855, affecting areas throughout the West. Plagues visited Minnesota in 1856–1857 and again in 1865, and Nebraska suffered repeated infestations between 1856 and 1874.[16]
The last major swarms of Rocky Mountain locust were between 1873 and 1877, when the locust caused $200 million in crop damage in Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska and other states. One farmer reported that the locusts seemed "like a great white cloud, like a snowstorm, blocking out the sun like vapor".[16] The locusts ate not only the grass and valuable crops, but also leather, wood, sheep's wool, and—in extreme cases—even clothes off peoples' backs. Trains were sometimes brought to a halt after skidding over large numbers of locusts run over on the rails.[17][15] As the swarms worsened, farmers attempted to control them using gunpowder, fires (sometimes dug in trenches to burn as many of the locusts as possible), smearing them with "hopperdozers", a type of plow device pulled behind horses that had a shield that knocked jumping locusts into a pan of liquid poison or fuel, even sucking them into vacuum cleaner–like contraptions, but all of these were ultimately ineffective in stopping the hordes.
It has been hypothesized that plowing and irrigation by settlers as well as trampling by cattle and other farm animals near streams and rivers in the Rocky Mountains destroyed their eggs in the areas they permanently lived, which ultimately caused their demise.[18] For example, reports from this era suggest that farmers killed over 150 egg cases per square inch while plowing, harrowing or flooding.[18]: 11–12 It appeared that this species lived and reproduced in the prairie only temporarily during swarming years, with each generation being smaller than the previous one and swarming ever further from the Rocky Mountains,[19] while the permanent breeding grounds of this species seemed to be restricted to an area somewhere between 3 and 3,000 square miles of sandy soils near streams and rivers in the Rockies, which coincided with arable and pastoral lands exploited by settlers.[18]
Because locusts are a form of grasshopper that appear when grasshopper populations reach high densities, it was theorized that M. spretus might not be extinct, that "solitary phase" individuals of a migratory grasshopper might be able to turn into the Rocky Mountain locust given the right environmental conditions; however, breeding experiments using many grasshopper species in high-density environments failed to invoke the famous insect. The status of M. spretus as a distinct species was confirmed by a 2004 DNA analysis of North American species of the genus Melanoplus.[14]
Melanoplus spretus was formally declared extinct by the
In culture
Assumption Chapel in Cold Spring, Minnesota, was established as a Christian pilgrimage shrine (German: Wahlfahrtsort)[22] (German: Gnadenkapelle)[23][24] in 1877 by German-American Catholic pioneer farmers, supposedly to keep away future locust plagues similar to those they had faced in both the 1850s and the 1870s. The Feast Day of St. Magnus of Füssen, who is traditionally known in Southern Germany as one of the protectors of farmers from thunderstorms and plagues of vermin, on September 6 was locally celebrated as "Grasshopper Day".[25]
The 1877 pilgrimage chapel dedicated to
A fictionalized description of the devastation created by Rocky Mountain locusts in the 1870s can be found in the 1937 novel On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Her description was based on actual incidents in western Minnesota during the summers of 1874 and 1875 as the locusts destroyed her family's wheat crop.[28]
Another vivid portrayal of the depredations of the locust can be found in Ole Edvart Rølvaag's Giants in the Earth, based in part on his own experiences and those of his wife's family.[29]
In 2018, a chamber opera about the Rocky Mountain locust named Locust: The Opera premiered in Wyoming, USA. The libretto for the opera was written by professor and author Jeffrey Lockwood who adapted it from his book Locust: the Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect that Shaped the American Frontier.[30][31]
See also
- Locust Plague of 1874
- List of recently extinct insects
- Mormon cricket – another large, swarming orthopteran native to western North America
- Passenger pigeon – another example of rapid anthropogenic extinction of a North American species
References
Citations
- ^ a b Hochkirch, A. (2017) [errata version of 2014 assessment]. "Melanoplus spretus". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2014: e.T51269349A111451167.
- ^ "NatureServe Explorer 2.0". explorer.natureserve.org. Retrieved 5 November 2022.
- ^ a b c Sutton et al. 1996, p. 1.
- ^ a b Gurney & Brooks 1959, p. 55.
- ^ "Melanoplus spretus, Rocky Mountain grasshopper". Animal Diversity Web. University of Michigan Museum of Zoology. Retrieved 2009-04-16.
- ^ Canada's History, October–November 2015, pages 43-44
- ^ Lockwood, Jeffrey (February 3, 2003). "The death of the Super Hopper". HighCountryNews. Retrieved 2022-02-07.
- ^ Walsh, B.D. (October 1866). "Grasshoppers and Locusts". The Practical Entomologist. II (1): 1–2.
- ^ Thomas, C. (1878). "On the Orthoptera collected by Elliott Coues, U.S.A., in Dakota and Montana, during 1873-74". Bulletin of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories. Department of the Interior. 4: 483–501.
- ^ Scudder, S.H. (1878). "Remarks on Caloptenus and Melanoplus, with a notice of the species found in New England". Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History. 19: 281–286.
- ^ Scudder, SH (1878). "Remarks on Calliptenus and Melanoplus, with a notice of the species found in New England". Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History. 19: 287.
- ^ Scudder, SH (1878). Entomological Notes. Vol. 6. p. 46.
- . and references therein
- ^ PMID 15012958.
- ^ .
- ^ a b c d e Lyons, Chuck (5 February 2012). "1874: The Year of the Locust". HistoryNet. Retrieved 2015-06-17.
- ^ First Annual Report of the United States Entomological Commission for the year 1877 relating to the Rocky Mountain Locust. Washington. 1878. p. 274.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ ISBN 978-0-7382-0894-7.
- ^ Thomas, C. (1878). "On the Orthoptera collected by Dr. Elliott Coues, U.S.A., in Dakota and Montana, during 1973–74". Bulletin of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories. 4. Department of the Interior: 485–501.
- ^ Gollop, J.B.; Barry, T. W.; Iverson, E. H. (1986). Eskimo Curlew: a vanishing species?. Saskatchewan Natural History Society.
- ^ "Threatened and Endangered Species. Eskimo Curlew" (PDF). US Fish and Wildlife Service. 2006. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 January 2009.
- ^ Fr. Robert J. Voigt (1991), The Story of Mary and the Grasshoppers, Cold Spring, Minnesota. Pages 17.
- ^ Fr. Robert J. Voigt (1991), The Story of Mary and the Grasshoppers, Cold Spring, Minnesota. Pages 28.
- S2CID 159890053.
- JSTOR 25027056.
- ^ Janice Wedl, O.S.B. (2005), A Dwelling Place for God: The History of St. Mary, Help of Christians Parish, St. Augusta, Minnesota, North Star Press, St. Cloud, Minnesota. Pages 110-113.
- ^ Fr. Robert J. Voigt (1991), The Story of Mary and the Grasshoppers, Cold Spring, Minnesota. Page 25.
- ^ Yoon, Carol Kaesuk (23 April 2002). "Looking Back at the Days of the Locust". The New York Times. Retrieved 2015-04-01.
- ISBN 978-0-8032-6468-7.
- ^ "You Heard That Right. An Opera About Locusts". Wyoming Public Media. 2018-09-14. Retrieved 2022-12-27.
- ^ Locust - The Opera, retrieved 2022-12-27
General references
- Gurney, Ashley B.; Brooks, A. R. (1959). "Grasshoppers of the Mexicanus Group, Genus Melanoplus (Orthoptera: Acrididae)" (PDF). Proceedings of the United States National Museum. 110 (3416). S2CID 40907558. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2019-11-15.
- Ryckman, Lisa Levitt (22 June 1999). "The Great Locust Mystery". Rocky Mountain News. Denver, Colo. Archived from the original on 1 June 2009. Retrieved 2013-03-31.
- Samways, M. J.; Lockwood, J. A. (1 January 1998). "Orthoptera conservation: pests and paradoxes". Journal of Insect Conservation. 2 (3/4): 143–149. S2CID 25949134.
- Sutton, Bruce D.; Carlson, David A.; Lockwood, Jeffrey A.; Nunamaker, Richard A. (August 1996). "Cuticular Hydrocarbons of Glacially-Preserved Melanoplus (Orthoptera: Acrididae): Identification and Comparison with Hydrocarbons of M. sanguinipes and M. spretus". Journal of Orthoptera Research (5). Orthopterists' Society: 1–12. S2CID 15670276.