Which locust species migrates in massive swarms across Africa and the Middle East?

The desert locust is the locust species known for migrating in massive swarms across Africa and the Middle East.

Its scientific name is Schistocerca gregaria. Most of the time, desert locusts live as solitary insects in dry regions stretching across parts of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and southwest Asia. After favourable rains create vegetation and moist soil, their numbers can rise rapidly. Crowding changes their behaviour, colour and body form, producing the gregarious phase associated with destructive swarms.

Wind-assisted swarms can travel more than 100 kilometres in a day and may cross national borders and seas. A large swarm can contain tens of millions of insects and consume crops and pasture at extraordinary rates.

The migratory locust is a real swarming species, so it is a plausible distractor, but the question’s Africa-and-Middle-East description most specifically identifies the desert locust. “Locust” is a common name for grasshoppers capable of this swarm-forming behaviour, not a single taxonomic family.