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🔗 United States 🔗 Insects 🔗 United States History

Albert's swarm was an immense concentration of the Rocky Mountain locust that swarmed the Western United States in 1875. It was named after Albert Child, a physician interested in meteorology, who calculated the size of the swarm to 198,000 square miles (510,000 km²) by multiplying the swarm's estimated speed with the time it took for it to move through southern Nebraska.

The 1875 swarm is referred to repeatedly in a western Missouri historical record that explains:

It was the year 1875 that will long be remembered by the people of at least four states, as the grasshopper year. The scourge struck Western Missouri April, 1875, and commenced devastating some of the fairest portions of our noble commonwealth. They gave Henry [County] an earnest and overwhelming visitation, and demonstrated with an amazing rapidity that their appetite was voracious, and that everything green belonged to them for their sustenance.

One estimate numbers the locusts in the swarm at 3.5 trillion. Another estimate numbers the swarm at 12.5 trillion, which is the greatest concentration of animals ever speculatively guessed, according to Guinness World Records.

🔗 Russia 🔗 Russia/mass media in Russia 🔗 Central Asia 🔗 Insects 🔗 Ukraine 🔗 Russia/physical geography of Russia 🔗 Russia/history of Russia 🔗 Belarus

Depopulation of cockroaches in post-Soviet states refers to observations that there has been a rapid disappearance of various types of cockroaches since the beginning of the 21st century in Russia and other countries of the former USSR. Various factors have been suggested as causes of the depopulation.

🔗 Environment 🔗 Insects 🔗 Ecology

An increasing number of scientific studies are reporting substantial declines in insect populations worldwide. Most commonly, the declines involve reductions in abundance, though in some cases entire species are going extinct. The declines are far from uniform. In some localities, there have been reports of increases in overall insect population, and some types of insects appear to be increasing in abundance across the world.

Some of the insects most affected include bees, butterflies, moths, beetles, dragonflies and damselflies. Anecdotal evidence has been offered of much greater apparent abundance of insects in the 20th century; recollections of the windscreen phenomenon are an example.

Possible causes are similar to other biodiversity loss, with studies identifying: habitat destruction, including intensive agriculture; the use of pesticides (particularly insecticides); urbanization, and industrialization; introduced species; and climate change. Not all insect orders are affected in the same way; many groups are the subject of limited research, and comparative figures from earlier decades are often not available.

In response to the reported declines, increased insect related conservation measures have been launched. In 2018 the German government initiated an "Action Programme for Insect Protection", and in 2019 a group of 27 British entomologists and ecologists wrote an open letter calling on the research establishment in the UK "to enable intensive investigation of the real threat of ecological disruption caused by insect declines without delay".

🔗 Food and drink 🔗 Insects 🔗 Forestry

Shellac () is a resin secreted by the female lac bug on trees in the forests of India and Thailand. Chemically, it is mainly composed of aleuritic acid, jalaric acid, shellolic acid, and other natural waxes. It is processed and sold as dry flakes and dissolved in alcohol to make liquid shellac, which is used as a brush-on colorant, food glaze and wood finish. Shellac functions as a tough natural primer, sanding sealant, tannin-blocker, odour-blocker, stain, and high-gloss varnish. Shellac was once used in electrical applications as it possesses good insulation qualities and seals out moisture. Phonograph and 78 rpm gramophone records were made of shellac until they were replaced by vinyl long-playing records from 1948 onwards.

From the time shellac replaced oil and wax finishes in the 19th century, it was one of the dominant wood finishes in the western world until it was largely replaced by nitrocellulose lacquer in the 1920s and 1930s.