March 21, 2026
When the sky turned snack time
Albert's Swarm
Trillions of bugs ate the West in 1875 — commenters stunned we wiped them out
TLDR: In 1875, a locust swarm possibly trillions strong darkened the Western U.S.—and the species later vanished after farms destroyed its breeding grounds. Comments mix shock that humans erased the insect with relief for saved crops, plus one chaotic YouTube link fueling “sky-as-salad-bar” memes.
The internet just rediscovered “Albert’s Swarm,” the 1875 mega-cloud of Rocky Mountain locusts so huge it spanned about 198,000 square miles and, by some guesses, hit up to 12.5 trillion insects — a Guinness-level “biggest crowd of animals” moment. An 1883 Missouri account even called it the dreaded “grasshopper year,” when anything green vanished. Cue the comments section, which instantly split into awe, horror, and gallows humor.
Top-voted explainer wyum delivered the twist: we don’t hear about locust swarms anymore because settlers likely made this species accidentally extinct by plowing up its tiny breeding grounds; the last specimen was taken in 1904, per Wikipedia. That set off a mini soul-search: are humans the accidental villains of this story, or the reluctant heroes who saved crops by changing the land? One camp mourned a lost migration; another said, “Tell that to 1875 farmers,” waving the historical receipts. Meanwhile, bob1029 dropped a no-context YouTube link that instantly became the thread’s running joke — commenters dubbing it the swarm’s “soundtrack” and posting sky-as-salad-bar memes.
The vibe: equal parts science class and disaster movie, with commenters arguing over whether to feel nostalgia, relief, or both — and cracking jokes while the sky goes crunch.
Key Points
- •Albert’s swarm was a massive Rocky Mountain locust event in 1875 across the Western United States.
- •Albert Child estimated the swarm’s area at about 198,000 square miles using speed and transit time through southern Nebraska.
- •A western Missouri historical record describes April 1875 devastation, affecting at least four states and severely impacting Henry County.
- •Estimates of the swarm’s size range from 3.5 trillion to 12.5 trillion locusts; Guinness notes the latter as the greatest concentration ever speculatively guessed.
- •An 1875 cartoon by Henry Worrall depicts Kansas farmers battling giant grasshoppers; related literature is cited for context.