The clouds of death

    The infamous rocky lobsters 

   The rocky lobster, (Melanoplus spretus), is an extinct species of lobster that spread across the western half of the United States and some western parts of Canadá, Until the end of the 19th century, before this and despite vague descriptions this species was famous for one thing: be synonymous with plague, hunger, death and destruction in that vast area of ​​American prairies, on both sides of the rocky mountains. 

Sightings often placed their swarms in numbers much larger than any other known locust or insect species, The most famous being the case of the Albert swarm, which was estimated at 198,000 square miles (510,000 km 2) with an estimated weight of 27.5 million tons and which was calculated in 12.5 billion insects, the largest concentration of animals ever estimated, according to the Guinness Book of Records, although ironically before this this species was ignored and even despised by entomologists of the time.

These swarms were described as large white clouds of vapor that darkened the sky, although they not only ate plants, but also leather, wood, sheep wool and, in extreme cases, even clothes from people's backs, Needless to say, where these tiny beasts passed, there was not a single green grass left standing, causing too many losses and often plunging the populations of those places into hunger for a long time.

Curiously, this species did not become extinct by human hands, since no matter how many attempts were made to put an end to it in the past, it was not possible and the last large swarms were between 1873 and 1877, when locusts caused two hundred million dollars in crop damage in Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska and other states, It was last seen in 1902, south of Canada and was declared extinct in 2014

The cause of their extinction is unknown, just as the species that gave rise to them remains a mystery and although attempts have been made to explain it, it has never been possible to explain it. So perhaps it will remain a mystery forever, although it seems very likely that it was nature's own nature destroying its creation, which was a risk for everyone in general, something curious but terrifying.

[Reading links]

https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanoplus_spretus