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Collective orientation by nocturnally migrating Australian plague locusts, Chortoicetes terminifera (Walker) (Orthoptera: Acrididae): a radar study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 July 2009

V. A. Drake
V. A. Drake
Affiliation:
Division of Entomology, CSIRO, P.O. Box 1700, Canberra, A.C.T. 2601, Australia.
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Abstract

The collective orientation of Chortoicetes terminifera (Wlk.) migrating at night in New South Wales was studied with a radar. Measurements of the distribution of insect echoes on the radar's plan-position-indicator display provide information about the variation of both the direction and the degree of orientation with both height and time. A quantitative analysis procedure used in a detailed study of one particularly interesting series of observations is described. It was found that collective orientation occurred frequently, and that it sometimes became very well-developed. The direction of orientation remained approximately constant for long periods, but did not appear to be consistently related to any obvious directional cue; changes in direction were observed on occasions, however, and one such change was clearly associated with a change in the direction of the wind. The degree of collective orientation was a rather more variable quantity than the direction, and increases in degree were sometimes associated with increases in the number of locusts arriving at the observation site.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Bulletin of Entomological Research , Volume 73 , Issue 4 , December 1983 , pp. 679 - 692
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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