The dazzling lights of Las Vegas are meant to attract. And on one summer night, they did just that, luring millions of grasshoppers— a whopping 30.2 metric tons’ worth.
That dramatic night, July 27, 2019, marked the peak of weeks of grasshoppers taking to the air after dark and, like moths bewitched by a porchlight, filling the brightly lit streets of the most intensely illuminated city in the United States. The spectacle made international news.
Just how big was it, Tielens and her colleagues wondered. They got to work, using Nevada weather-prediction radar data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration archives to study the horde of hard-to-count insects.
That dramatic night, July 27, 2019, marked the peak of weeks of grasshoppers taking to the air after dark and, like moths bewitched by a porchlight, filling the brightly lit streets of the most intensely illuminated city in the United States. The spectacle made international news.
Just how big was it, Tielens and her colleagues wondered. They got to work, using Nevada weather-prediction radar data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration archives to study the horde of hard-to-count insects.
