Or Charleton Heston, for that matter.

CAIRO (AP) In an echo of the biblical plagues, millions of locusts swarmed into northern Egypt on Wednesday for the first time in 50 years, prompting authorities to order emergency pesticide spraying to protect the region's important agriculture industry. Clouds of the red insects, up to 2 3/4 inches long, flitted about over Cairo, while others hopped around on rooftops. By evening, the skies were clear.

Christian Pantenius, program coordinator of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization office in Egypt...said the locusts were showing no sign of moving farther south along the agriculturally rich Nile River valley, and he predicted the swarm most likely would head southeast toward the Red Sea coast...

Locusts, which normally live between two and six months, eat their weight -- about 0.07 ounces -- in crops every day. They can travel as much as 120 miles in a day. The FAO described the insect clouds as a "medium density swarm of locusts numbering several million, if not a billion," covering several square miles.

Pantenius said it was the first time locusts in such numbers had hit the region around Cairo since the 1950s. Small numbers of the ravenous insects were spotted in Egypt during a locust plague that struck countries from eastern to western African in 1986-89. The FAO said big locust outbreaks like that now afflicting western and northern Africa generally last for several years.

* James Earl Jones played the adult Kokumo, a possessed boy exorcised by Father Merrin in Africa in Exorcist II: The Heretic - a fact conveniently forgotten in Exorcist IV: The Beginning. I'm certain he's too busy recording Verizon Wireless™ menu voiceovers to have participated in that travesty. You see, the young Kokumo was apparently targeted for Regan McNeilization because of his inherently good nature...he was the, ahem, Good Locust.

Sometimes when I watch E2, I still think it's a weird, weird dream. Funny timing those locusts have...

name billy
status student
age 20s

Question - What triggers a grasshopper to become a locust?

In the movie the Exorcist, James Earl-Jones explains to Richard Burton that when there are a lot of grasshoppers together the "rubbing of the wings" between each other triggers this transformation. Is this Accurate? If so, what exactly happens to cause this transformation in color and behavior?
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Billy,

Grasshoppers and locusts, assuming normal usage of the words, are different species. You might want to consult a good insect text to see the comparisons/contrasts.

Thanks for using NEWTON!

Ric Rupnik
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Huh? I'm sorry, I haven't seen the movie the Exorcist, but this confirms my opinion that one should never pay much attention to any "science" in movies. Grasshoppers and locusts are completely different insects and one never becomes the other. The movie s fiction.
J. Elliott

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