North America is the only continent without locust plagues

Finished Reading: Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect That Shaped the American Frontier

The final major plague of locusts in North America is vividly recounted in the books of Laura Ingalls Wilder. This grasshopper species had been ravaging the American west for hundreds of years. For some reason, the locusts, which used to swarm with numbers literally in the billions, became extinct a few years later. This book gives a history of the Rocky Mountain locust, relates some of the authors research, and attempts to explain the extinction of this once feared creature.

Purpose of this Blog

I have been planning for years to write something about mass extinctions. I hope to use this space to collect thoughts and references on large species extinction events in the earth's history. For example, I want to write about passenger pigeons, American chestnut trees, and dinosaurs. "Smaller" extinctions like the dodo bird and other island creatures are not off limits, but my main interest now is dominant species that covered a large range, and which were eliminated in a short span of time.