Nature's Most Destructive Swarm | 20 Years of Planet Earth | BBC Earth (Level 1)

Desert locusts are amazing insects. They change very fast when it rains in the desert. Their eggs can wait in the dry ground for 20 years. When the rain finally comes, the eggs hatch. The young insects cannot fly yet. They walk to find fresh green grass to eat. If there is a lot of food, they grow into adults very quickly. Soon, the food in one place is gone. The adult locusts use special smells to tell each other to move. They join together and fly in the sky. This large group is called a swarm. A locust eats its own body weight every day. A large swarm eats hundreds of tons of plants. The wind carries them to new places where rain falls and more plants grow. These huge groups can have billions of insects. They eat every plant in their path. When all the food is gone, they disappear, and the desert is quiet again.