Back to Show
Deep Look
These Swarming Locusts Are Grasshoppers Gone Wrong
Season 8
Episode 20
They might look like harmless grasshoppers, but locusts have an appetite for destruction. When the conditions are right, they transform from mild-mannered loners into gregarious partiers. They swarm, causing chaos and suffering at the level of a biblical plague. So what sets them off?
Sign up now for inspiring and thought-provoking media delivered straight to your inbox.
Support Provided By

3:49
Giant water bugs pack one of the most painful bites of any insect, but they're great dads.

4:33
The spotted wing drosophila may look like a common fruit fly, but it’s so much worse.

5:13
Those precious silk garments in your closet were made by the caterpillars of a fuzzy moth.

3:58
Barnacles might look like jagged little rocks, but they have a surprisingly wild sex life.

4:36
Honeypot ants stuff members of their own colony until they look like tiny water balloons.

4:25
What animal sprays acid that reeks of vinegar from its rear end? A vinegaroon, of course.

4:31
The cage fungus looks and smells like decaying meat — on purpose.

5:12
Subterranean termites fly off in swarms, and then drop their wings to start new colonies.

4:59
A twig is actually just one of many disguises for the Australian walking stick insect.

4:58
A kissing bug gorges on your blood, plus it may carry a potentially deadly parasite.

4:38
Skeleton shrimp anatomy can be confusing, with their funky assortment of body parts.

4:42
Tadpole shrimp are a special type of time-traveling crustacean called triops.