All the while growing up, I had to deal with using the term "locust" to describe a cicada.  I studied them as a young lad but easily distinguished between the two widely different species early on.  However, it seemed everyone around me had no idea what a cicada was until I referred to them by their "alias."  It was frustrating to me because even my mother referred to them as that until I enlightened her to their proper name.

 

Luckily that was almost 40 years ago and the times are changing where information/knowledge has become more readily available thanks to the internet and social media.  The alias or incorrect term "locust" is slowing becoming a description of the past.  

 

So, what is a locust then and how did the name become associated with the cicada?  

 

The name "locust" goes way back to the biblical days where certain species of grasshoppers reproduced too rapidly until their numbers became extremely large "swarms."  These swarms attacked crops and stripped the foliage clean on all available vegetation.  These crops were quickly destroyed and as the creatures moved onward; their numbers were so abundant that as they flew, they resembled a storm cloud advancing on a horizon.  Sounds like a thing of a nightmare, right?  They definitely were to the people of those older days.  These creatures are described in the Bible book of "Exodus" and are one of the 10 plagues that Moses warned the Pharaoh Ramesses would come if he did not set the enslaved Israelites free. 

 

A locust can be any number of species of grasshopper and is not designated to a particular one. It is rather given to any species whose numbers can increase to such enormous "swarm" populations that they become a serious pest to agriculture.

 

The locust name went on for generations throughout human history and eventually into the new world.   The year 1633 was the first written account of Periodical Cicadas meeting the settlers of the Plymouth Colony.  Those first immigrants living on the North American shores were not prepared when they first encountered the 17 year cicada.  When those cicadas emerged from the ground in massive numbers, the colonists described them as flies and compared them to the locust plagues of the Bible.  They had thought these insects had arrived to punish them for something they may have done!  The cicada brood involved was probably Brood II which still exists today.  However due to descriptive error, the term "locust" was improperly branded on the cicada ever since.   Dr. Gene Kritsky of the University of Mount St. Joseph in Southern Ohio, researched the historical records and wrote a book called "Periodical Cicadas: The Plague and the Puzzle" describing these events.   The book is available through numerous sellers and I highly recommend it for it's a fantastic read!  (ISBN-10: 188336213X, ISBN-13: 978-1883362133).  Or you can purchase his latest publication, "Periodical Cicadas: The Brood X Edition."  (ISBN-10: 086727171X, ISBN-13: 978-0867271713).