Locusts interact with several neighbours to swarm together

Swarming locusts interact with at least two of their neighbours when aligning themselves in order to march in the same direction, says new research led by Bath mathematicians. During swarming, locusts tend to move in the same direction as their neighbours, but then spontaneously switch direction together as a group, a behaviour also seen in other animal groups such as starlings and fish. The more locusts join the swarm, the less directional switching occurs and the more stable the swarm becomes. During major plagues, swarms can comprise up to a quarter of a billion locusts each eating their own body weight in food each day. They can migrate across 20 per cent of the total land surface of the world, wreaking devastation on the crops and livelihoods of farmers. Mathematically modelling the behaviour of these swarms could, in the future, lead to new strategies for controlling or dispersing them. Modelling locust interactions.