A small Nevada town is being terrorized by a “biblical” plague of cannibal Mormon crickets that have blanketed streets, raided buildings and alarmed residents.
The two-inch-long pests that have plagued Elko, Nevada, not only eat all of the crops, but also pose a hazard to traffic and make roads dangerously slippery after millions of crickets have been crushed by cars and their guts create a slippery surface .
Residents also have to contend with a swarm of insects that cover the ground, crawl up walls, and infest buildings.
Despite their name, the insects are technically large katydids that closely resemble grasshoppers, according to the University of Nevada, Reno. They don’t fly, they walk or hop. And although the bugs are completely harmless to humans, they pose a threat to pests and frighten locals who are afraid of bugs.
Elko, a small Nevada town, is being terrorized by a “biblical” invasion of cannibalistic Mormon crickets who have made the streets dangerously slippery after the vermin were crushed by cars
Footage shared on social media channels shows the city, along with several other Nevada counties, coming under attack as the swarm of insects makes its way across the state
Footage shared on social media channels shows the city, along with several other Nevada counties, coming under attack as the swarm of insects makes its way across the state.
“When we looked out here, the whole wall was just covered. “That really scared me,” resident Colette Reynolds told KLAS.
A spokesman for Northeastern Nevada Regional Hospital told KSL that the hospital had to use brooms and leaf blowers to clear the way for patients to enter the building.
The Nevada Department of Transportation has plowed and sanded roads to clear up the squashed bugs that have been making the roads slippery.
“You can see them moving and crawling, and the whole street is crawling, and it just gives you goosebumps.” “It’s just so gross,” added Stephanie Garrett.
Residents also have to contend with a swarm of insects that cover the ground, crawl up walls, and infest buildings
The two-inch-long pests that afflicted Elko, Nevada, are also eating all of the crops
The plague-like imagery also shows how dangerous the roads are now, with the added layer of crushed insects
The plague-like imagery also shows how dangerous the roads are now, with the added layer of crushed insects.
“They get run over, two or three come out and eat their mate and they get run over and the roads can get cricket covered and slippery,” Jeff Knight, an entomologist with the Nevada Department of Agriculture, told KSL.
“The bigger problem is these thunderstorms in the afternoon. If you put some water on it, it will be slippery. We have had a number of accidents caused by crickets.”
Knight has been controlling Mormon crickets on Nevada farmlands since 1976 and has experienced approximately 40 outbreaks in that time.
“The Cricket Gang in Elko.” [Nevada] is probably a thousand acres, and we’ve had bands that were even bigger,” he said.
“It was probably the drought that prompted hatching.” Once they do, they have the upper hand, so their populations grow for several years and then decline.”
Mormon crickets are named after swarms of insects that destroyed the fields of Mormon settlers in Utah in the mid-1800s
The Nevada Department of Transportation has plowed and sanded roads to clear up the squashed bugs that have been making the roads slippery
The swarms migrating through Nevada can survive four to six years before being overtaken by other insects and predators
Knight added that the insects lay eggs in the summer, which lie dormant in the winter and hatch in the spring. However, due to the unusually rainy winter, there have been delays in the birth of the young, he said.
The swarms that move through Nevada can survive four to six years before being overtaken by other insects and predators, Knight told the Guardian.
‘[Population density] is why they say, “There are too many of us here, we need to start moving.”
Mormon cricket infestations are nothing new in the western US, and residents have little choice but to wait and see, entomologists say.
This time last year, Oregon was also battling massive swarms of Mormon crickets and locusts.
Despite its name, the Mormon cricket (pictured) is actually a shield-backed hoofed animal and not a cricket. The name derives from Mormon settlers in Utah who encountered them advancing west and the prominent role they played in the miracle of the seagulls
In addition to feeding on crops, the insects are cannibals and will eat each other, dead or alive, when not saturated with protein.
The area had been hit by a drought that created ideal conditions for the hatching of locust and Mormon cricket eggs.
Mormon crickets are named after swarms of insects that destroyed the fields of Mormon settlers in Utah in the mid-1800s.
They have continued to destroy corn, oats, wheat, rye and barley, some of the state’s highest-yielding crops, according to Utah State University.