Soooo in honor of science not being 100% sure if the Rocky Mountain locust is extinct or not

who wants to hear about the time I maybe found one?

and yes I 100% waited for 2020 to be over before tweeting about this, you're welcome https://twitter.com/BugQuestions/status/1390111152294744064
*gotta go drill holes before it gets dark brb
Ok holes drilled, another trellis complete & erected under cover of darkness (:

Let's talk Rocky Mountain Locust sightings!
First, let's talk about what locusts are.

Locusts are species that are normal solitary grasshoppers most of the time- unless certain weather/crowding conditions hit. Then they have hormonal & behavioral changes, gather into swarms, & travel long distances in search of food.
There's not really a locust "family"; there are just certain species all over the grasshopper group that swarm under the right conditions.

So locust is more of a verb than a noun. Swarming a thing some grasshopper species can do, not what they are most of the time.
Lots of insects have these kinds of behavior changes from environmental stress. Aphids do something kind of similar: when the plant they're on starts dying, wingless adults start having babies with wings so they can fly off & get out of there lol
This means there's some uncertainty on whether the Rocky Mountain Locust is extinct, because grasshoppers can look different when they're in solitary vs swarming form. Maybe RML's have a solitary form that we don't recognize as being RML? Who's to say.
Anyway, here's what happened.

Once upon a time back in 2008 I was a baby crop science grad student at the University of Florida. We had to do an insect collection for an entomology class.
The way these coursework insect collections work, usually you spend the last couple weeks of the semester in a lab looking at your bug collection through scopes: squinting & counting bumps & segments to ID what they are.
The main insect ID tool is a dichotomous key. These are big fat choose-your-own-adventure books full of "Does this insect you're looking at have X feature or Y feature?" questions. You follow these [sometimes for hours] until you get to the end & it tells you what your bug is.
So one day I'm keying through my bug collection & start working on this grasshopper

and it comes out as Melanoplus spretus: the Rocky Mountain Locust.
So I said to myself "lol I kNOW that's not right" & started over. Dichotomous keys are long & complicated documents. Sometimes you miss a step and get an answer that's obviously wrong! Happens all the time!

So I did it again. It came out as Rocky Mountain Locust again.
I checked and re-checked that thing about a dozen times. I went through that key with a fine-toothed comb.

It kept coming out Rocky Mountain Locust.

A species that everyone knows is extinct! JFC how bad at this can you be?
Here's the fun part: as best as we can tell, although RMLs made plagues that swept over the continent, they only bred in a tiny habitat: river valleys in the Rocky Mountains.

Where'd I get that grasshopper? By a mountain stream in Utah.
Did I alert the media?

Oh hell no, I threw that thing away & never told anyone.

I'd spent the year before working in a really hostile lab where asking normal questions got you yelled at. Nvmd shit like "like "Hey check out this extinct plague that I totally found for reals."
It was my 2nd semester of grad school. I was worried everyone was going to find out I was an idiot who didn't belong there and fail in life and die. Which would have been real bad bc it was the fall of 2008 and everything was on fire.

I just…assumed I was bad at ID'ing insects.
I related this to @Stylopidae last year as a "haha mouth-breathing crop scientist tries insect ID, fails miserably" funny story

only to find out actually we're not 100% sure the RML is extinct & I really should have hung onto that grasshopper lmao
Sidenote, experiences like this are part of why I'm such an unmitigated pain in the ass about not being a jerk to employees.

You kill the messenger enough times & people stop telling you things. Even if they're important!

Like "Hey what if the RML's not extinct"-important.
Anyway, three morals to this story:

-If you you find something weird, and you double-checked it a couple times, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TELL SOMEONE

-"Everyone knows that doesn't exist anymore!" can be a real self-fulfilling prophecy.
-Last but not least: If you want to go looking for Rocky Mountain locusts, check out the Wasatch Front. Provo Canyon in particular.
You can follow @SarahTaber_bww.
Tip: mention @twtextapp on a Twitter thread with the keyword “unroll” to get a link to it.

Latest Threads Unrolled: