This bizarre footage shows a legion of “duck troops” that have been deployed in China to fight a swarm of locusts head-on.
The plague of locusts which has wreaked havoc across east Africa has now reached China’s Xinjiang border in the far west of the country, where it meets Pakistan and India.
Pakistan declared a national emergency due to potential food shortages, with Prime Minister Imran Khan calling it “the worst locust attack in decades”.
In an impressive video, shared by the state-run Chinese news site CGTN, thousands of ducks are seen marching down a road to face and then eat the enemy.
The video of the waddling menace has garnered a lot of support on Twitter, with viewers asking to see more of the ducks in action.
“Make a longer video, this is fantastic,” said one fan.
A second impressed viewer said: “Go Mighty Ducks!!!”
Meanwhile, someone else described the scenes as “World War Three”, and added that “the ducks look like the allies troops here while the locusts are the axis”.
The brown birds, referred to as “duck troops” in Chinese media, have been used to tackle locusts before and some say they are more effective than pesticides.
Wang, from Xinjiang, previously told Global Times that one juvenile duck can manage 4m² of land by gorging on locusts.
The locusts are also suitable for human consumption and are supposedly tasty when battered in breadcrumbs and fried in oil.
In 2017, farmers who lost crops due to the locust plague got their revenge by catching the critters and selling those for food instead.
“Our corn harvest would be reduced, for sure, but catching locusts brought me a lot more money,” a local told Beijing News at the time.
In this latest outbreak, said to be the worst in 25 years, swarms of locusts have reached a terrifying 60km long in Kenya according to officials.