Postscripts

Abstract

The period since the Discussion Meeting in June 1977 has witnessed the development of another major Desert Locust upsurge. What in retrospect may have been a key stage had occurred less than 3 weeks before the Meeting. The 1977-8 upsurge showed some striking similarities to earlier upsurges but also some individual characteristics. In the latter part of 1976 the main Desert Locust populations were: in the western region, gregarious hoppers and young adults in northeast Mali, northwest Niger and southern Algeria and, arising from these, a few swarms in southwest Libya and adjacent Algeria, in the central region, groups of hoppers and adults on the Red Sea coast of Sudan; in the eastern region, gregarious populations in India and Pakistan had been reduced to low levels by insecticides. Details of the main populations (using the same criteria as Rainey & Betts in this symposium) and control measures are given in appendix 1 and their probable or possible interconnections are shown in figure 1.