Cigarros

The grasshoppers or locusts are orthopteran insects known in Madeira by the name of cigarros. The common green cigarro is the Phaneroptera-4-punctata; the gray cigarro, frequent in the fields, is the Pachytilus danicus. It was the Dectycus albifrons that caused great devastation to the crops of Madeira and Porto Santo in 1844. It appears from time to time on the first of these islands, brought by the winds from the coast of Africa, but after that year, it never caused significant damage to the crops.