Elko, Nevada, is playing host to a real life horror movie scenario. The town is experiencing a substantial invasion of Mormon crickets. Thankfully, the imposing insects are not directly harmful to people.
The Mormon cricket (Anabrus simplex) is a relatively large flightless and black or reddish insect native to the western half of North America, with adults reaching up to three inches in length. It’s not a true cricket, but belongs to the related group of katydids, or bush crickets. The nickname comes from the role it’s said to have played during the “Miracle of the Gulls”—a supposed event in 1848 when seagulls suddenly emerged to feast on the crickets that were ravaging the crops planted by pioneer Mormon farmers in Utah.
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While the tale might be apocryphal, Mormon crickets truly have been a persistent nuisance for humans in the area. Every year or so, a new batch of crickets hatch from eggs laid in the soil. They then group up and migrate throughout the region, devouring whatever vegetation they come across. Their plant-eating rampage often doesn’t reach towns and cities, but unfortunately not this year for the residents of Elko.
“It’s almost like a biblical plague,” resident Dana Dolan told The Associated Press last week. Charles Carmichael, the owner of a local pest control company, told CBC that millions of crickets have likely visited the town of 20,000 this summer.
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This year’s invasion probably isn’t the largest ever to befall the region, but it is unusual. Normally, the eggs hatch earlier in the spring, but relatively wet conditions in Northern Nevada over the past winter and spring delayed their arrival while a recent drought in the area might have prompted their hatching now.
The bugs aren’t after humans, nor are they poisonous, but they apparently do smell awful. What’s worse, they’re opportunistic cannibals. Crickets squashed by humans or their cars can drive swarms of their brethren to engage in an impromptu feeding frenzy, creating the sort of visual that nightmares are made of. Hospitals and other busy businesses have also had to deputize employees to scoot away the insects using brooms, leaf blowers, and anything else on hand, though with no lasting success.
Elko’s infestation is expected to die down by mid-August, but it can take time for surges in Mormon cricket populations to stabilize. Outbreaks in the area have been known to last for five to 21 years at a time, according to the Nevada Department of Agriculture, and buried eggs can lay dormant for up to a decade or more.
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