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Mormon crickets swarm en mass.

This is a picture of an Anabrus Simplex, also known as a Mormon cricket. This is a descendent of the same insects that attacked the first crops of the Mormon pioneers, the crops that had to be saved by California gulls. There is even a statue, in commemoration of the event, in Temple Square in Salt Lake City. These insects periodically swarm and eat everything in their path, including any of their dead companions. The eggs are laid without having any swarming instinct; so the mothers have to spray the swarming hormone on the clutch after the eggs are laid. The hormone is not added to the clutches during every breading year. Entomologists are still investigating what factors lead to a year for swarming.
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