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Zoologger: Flashmobbing locusts have redesigned brains
- 00:01 26 May 2010 by Michael Marshall
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Species: Schistocerca gregaria
Habitat: throughout north Africa, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent – and in biblical scenes of woe
In one of history's earliest recorded bioterrorist threats, Moses warned a recalcitrant pharoah: "I will bring locusts into your country… They will cover the face of the ground so that it cannot be seen. They will devour what little you have left…"
Moses might have added, "and their brains will be freakishly enlarged". It turns out that swarming locusts have brains almost a third larger than their solitary cousins – brains that have also been radically redesigned.
Zoologger: Flashmobbing locusts have redesigned brains - life - 26 May 2010 - New Scientist
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