A Nebraska Doctor Measured a Swarm 1,800 Miles Long in 1875

In June 1875, a country doctor and weather observer in Plattsmouth, Nebraska, looked up through a spy-glass at a swarm passing overhead. By telegraphing towns east and west and counting five days of flight, Dr. Albert Child worked out a cloud about 1,800 miles long and 110 miles wide, bigger than California. He called it utterly incredible. This is the true story of the Rocky Mountain locust. We follow Laura Ingalls Wilder's family on Plum Creek, the 1877 Entomological Commission, and entomologist Jeffrey Lockwood's search of Wyoming's Knife Point Glacier, where frozen locusts helped explain how a species estimated in the trillions was gone within about thirty years. What do you think finished the Rocky Mountain locust: the plough, or something nobody has found yet? Drop your theory in the comments, and subscribe for more true wildlife encounters and survival stories. #rockymountainlocust #nebraska #extinction #truestory #americanhistory