I saw my first Army Worms about ten days ago. Though they are called Army Worms, they’re actually slender black caterpillars. There were hundreds of them on the path up to the campus. After a closer look, I realized there were thousands of them in the mowed field beside the path. In fact, there may have been millions of them. It turns out that they had invaded other parts of Zimbabwe several weeks ago. They are a serious threat to crops because they devour foliage. They hatch from eggs deposited on leaves by small moths, live for about ten days, devouring foliage around them, and then burrow an inch or two in the ground. Apparently they emerge as moths about ten days later to move on elsewhere. Below is a picture of a few army worms. 
