Hordes of caterpillars swarm Liberia, Guinea

[Sequoia]

SHANKPALA, Liberia – Liberia's worst caterpillar plague in three decades has spread to neighboring Guinea after swarms of the crop-eating insects devastated more than 45 towns in the West African nation, officials said Friday.

Thousands of farmers have been unable to venture onto their farms. The 1-inch-long (2-3 centimeters) caterpillars were advancing in the tens of millions, devouring food crops and clogging wells and waterways with excrement, the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization said.

Agriculture experts from Liberia urged that the pests be attacked with aerial spraying quickly before they destroyed even more areas.

The outbreak, which began in central Liberia, has been blamed on last year's unusually long rainy season. The invasion already has affected two of the leading food-growing provinces in Liberia, which is still recovering from years of civil war

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090123/ap_on_re_af/af_caterpillar_plague

[applegrove]

1. There used to be caterpillar outbreaks in my back yard as a child. I loved

to have the fuzzy little things crawl on me. Then when I became a teenager they grossed me out. I know disgust is a way to keep humans from eating bad things. Why then wasn't I disgusted as a child? What is up with that?