Comments on: Day of the locust. Yum! https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/08/28/day-of-the-locust-yum/ Mon, 29 Aug 2011 17:22:52 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.6 By: TheBrummell https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/08/28/day-of-the-locust-yum/#comment-507383 Mon, 29 Aug 2011 17:22:52 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/08/28/day-of-the-locust-yum/#comment-507383 That the Efe/Pygmies are shorter than most other humans for genetic, rather than nutritional reasons isn’t too surprising – there must have been occassional rather tall people in medieval Europe, presumably the lucky few who happened to grow up in a time of plenty. Is there much in the way of variation in height among the Efe? Is part of that variation attributable to childhood nutrition, or do forest-dwelling hunter-gatherers such as the Efe not often experience periods of relative abundance and relative scarcity?

And another request here for the story of the King of the Pygmies.

]]> By: Anne C. Hanna https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/08/28/day-of-the-locust-yum/#comment-507382 Mon, 29 Aug 2011 06:25:55 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/08/28/day-of-the-locust-yum/#comment-507382 The “King of the Pygmies” story sounds interesting (even if grim). I’d just like to put in a plug for a post on that, if you’re willing to tell it.

]]> By: Greg Laden https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/08/28/day-of-the-locust-yum/#comment-507381 Sun, 28 Aug 2011 23:01:07 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/08/28/day-of-the-locust-yum/#comment-507381 I could be wrong, but as I said, they were not locust, and they looked to me like katydids. And, I have full confidence that they were the things eating the rice in that year. I know of only one study ever conducted of traditional rice growing in the region, and it is decades old. The WHO was unaware that leprosy is common in this area (they thought they had wiped it out in Africa). I was able to find previously unidentified species of insects by turning over random rocks. From a peak in the early 1980s, when there was SOME stuff known about this area, to the present, the total amount of research done per year had decreased to almost zero in all fields. In other words, if there is a discord between common knowledge and what is seen or known locally there, I’m not surprised.

Someone who does know insects assured me that these are not locust, and the term “more like a katydid” was bandied about. They look like katydids to me.

Locusts do affect the crops in the general region Central and West Africa, of course.

]]> By: Lou Jost https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/08/28/day-of-the-locust-yum/#comment-507380 Sun, 28 Aug 2011 22:16:01 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/08/28/day-of-the-locust-yum/#comment-507380 Greg, are you sure about these IDs? Katydids are not locusts and, as far as I know, do not swarm to any great degree. Katydids are long-antennaed, usually laterally compressed Orthopterans. The famous swarming African locusts, like North American grasshoppers, are short-antennaed Orthopterans that are more rounded in cross section.

The things that flew into the Efe fire at night might have been katydids (they are often nocturnal), but then they would not be the swarming things that descend on their rice.

I don’t know if they taste different….

]]> By: megan https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/08/28/day-of-the-locust-yum/#comment-507379 Sun, 28 Aug 2011 22:07:58 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/08/28/day-of-the-locust-yum/#comment-507379 Remember hearing about the use of locust as massive protien for places in Africa for years, since I was child in the 70’s. That they were trying to find methods to make it more efficient and successful was the news.

]]> By: Russell https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/08/28/day-of-the-locust-yum/#comment-507378 Sun, 28 Aug 2011 18:05:47 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/08/28/day-of-the-locust-yum/#comment-507378 I don’t know if I could eat a katydid. They look too much like weird extraterrestrials.

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