Farmers across the Australian Outback have been warned of a potential explosion of locusts in the coming months, after a plague of millions of the grasshopper-like insects swept across four states earlier this month.

Millions of the quick-breeding and fast-moving insects have damaged crops and caused havoc in country towns by infesting parts of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia – covering an area of approximately 500,000 square kilometres (190,000 square miles), roughly the size of Spain.

However this year’s outbreak could potentially be worse than the devastating plague of 2004 – when locusts swept through eastern Australia damaging an area twice the size of England - because of recent rainfall across drought-affected inland Australia.

“Some farmers are taking it into their own hands because there’s quite large scale damage on a lot of properties,” he said.

And it is not just the horticulture and agriculture industries that have been hit by the bugs, the towns themselves are also being inundated with the pests which are a danger to drivers as they swarm over cars on country highways, as well as casuing a hazard to pilots flying aircraft.

“It’s really really bad here, one of the 400m long fairways was just completely brown because it was covered in locusts,” Mr Newey told The Times.

The biggest threat is yet to come according to authorities who have warned rural areas to brace for a further breakout as eggs laid by the current plague hatch in the Australian spring.

“Come the middle of September through to October across that entire inland area... we expect there to be some very large infestations again,” Mr Adriaansen said.