Locusts Besiege Cancun, Demand Tequila

Those party animals of the animal uprising, the locust, have laid siege to the Mexican resort city of Cancun. Our sources tell us that the locust heard about the free tequila that is available to tourists at the all-inclusive resorts there and are demanding their share of the bounty. (Our sources sometimes appear to have been indulging in tequila, but that's another story).

Traveling in dark fogs, locusts are grasshoppers that have entered a swarming phase, capable of covering large distances and rapidly stripping fields of vegetation.

"Imagine, they fly in the form of a flock. Imagine the width of a street," government official Martin Rodriguez said on Tuesday, describing the fields around Cancun on the Yucatan Peninsula.

Towns have formed pesticide-armed brigades and are winning the war against the 3-week-old plague that has left tourist areas unharmed, authorities said.

Squads wait until night when the flying insects are roosting on plants to blast them. They carry motorized backpack pumps to shoot chemicals in a crusade that has affected from 2,000 to 2,500 acres of farm land.

"It is a war, effectively," said German Parra, a senior agriculture official in the Gulf state of Quintana Roo, home of tourist resorts Cancun and Playa del Carmen.

Hot weather and an absence of mobility-limiting hurricanes have allowed the insects to breed more than normal but authorities hope to end the infestation in the next eight days.

So far the swarming party pests haven't actually made it to the beaches or the pool bars, but it is only a matter of time. Hide the tequila! Or drink it at once! (Send a bottle or two up this way, too. Our sources are thirsty).