Insectia is a nature documentary program on the Discovery Channel. The show's host, Georges Brossard, explains the life of insects by traveling around the world and introducing specimens in their natural habitat. . . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insectia
Mark records in his Gospel:
And John was clothed with camel's hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins; and he did eat locusts and wild honey. (Mark 1:6)
The Greek word for locust is "akris" which could either mean an insect like the grasshopper, or a kind of beans.
Certain kinds of locusts were permitted by God for consumption, and were a part of the clean food diet. God told Moses:
Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind. (Leviticus 11:2)
Locusts are highly destructive to vegetation. God sent judgments in the form of the destructive works of locusts, many a time.
On one occasion we read:
And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.
(Joel 2:25)
One of the plagues that struck ancient Egypt was locusts. Moses records:
And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt, and rested in all the coasts of Egypt: very grievous were they.
(Exodus 10:14)
Was John eating the insect locusts? If he were eating this as his staple food, was that nutritious enough to sustain him along with "wild honey"? The locust bean was more wholesome which was commonly available in those areas of Judea. It is, therefore, most likely that the locust referred to was the locust beans and not the locust insect, which would be more easily accessible to him who was alone in the wilderness!