Page 23 - INTRA MUROS November 2020

NATURE

Lessons

from a

Locust

Text and photos

by Anne Arnott

An encounter with a
free-roaming Arthropod
revealed some
interesting facts about
locusts and their reasons
for visiting one’s garden.

year, while renovating our garden
ast thought to do a bit of research and find schimperi, commonly known as a Round-
cottage, we arrived at its entrance
Lone morning to find a large locust out more about it. leaved poison-bush.
gracing the door handle. We’d been Whoopsy. It turns out that it’s known as I put a few young leaves and flowers from
thinking of using the cottage for AirBnB the Green Milkweed Locust (Phymateus this plant into the bird cage and, sure
accommodation, as a way of travelling the viridipes), also known as the African enough, the locust soon tucked in and
world without actually going anywhere Bush Grasshopper. While the dorsal area polished off all the buds and half a leaf.
ourselves. Needless to say, that idea has immediately behind its head, which is That doesn’t mean that these locusts don’t
since been squashed. covered in carbuncles, and its long oval eat other plants, but they will track down
head, are often bright green – as are the their favourite sources of food if they are
It’s a year later and again a lone locust has outer wings, the inner wings are bright red in your garden.
appeared. We now have a puppy who, and blue, quite striking to watch when it’s
we found out multiple times, is allergic in flight. When I eventually found a suitable
to bees. When she started trying to play opportunity to take the bird cage to the
with this new toy, I quickly intervened and If you annoy these locusts, they secrete a green belt up the road and set the visitor
caught it. Due to work pressures, I decided poisonous fluid from their thoracic joint – free, of course he simply did what came
to keep it in an old bird cage until I could so they are not good toys for puppies. naturally. There was no panic or flurry to
get a gap to take it to the green belt and get away. Without skipping a beat, he
release it – far away from the juicy new And here’s another cause for concern – set foot on terra firma and immediately
buds and shoots in our neighbourhood some of the plants that they feed on are started eating the lush green leaves of the
gardens. In the meantime, I gave it some highly toxic. According to Wikipedia, all nearest weed!
leaves and water to keep it alive. plants of the genus Acokanthera contain
toxic cardiac glycosides strong enough
It took a few days of watching this large to cause death, which is why the sap
creature with great fascination before I from these plants is used by traditional

The second visitor in the bird cage. Bushmen (Khoisan) for their poison
arrows. The Green Milkweed Locust feeds
on Acokanthera oppositiflora, Acokanthera
schimperi, both indigenous to Africa,
and Cascabela thevetia (also known as
yellow oleander) which hails from Central
America. Despite the toxicity of these
plants, they are often used for hedges.
It’s almost as though these lone visitors
were trying to tell me something, so I set
out to look for what would attract them to
our garden – and lo and behold – there it
was, right at the entrance to our property
– a very healthy and thriving Acokanthera

Our first visitor at the door of our garden cottage.

INTRA MUROS NOVEMBER 2020 21