Global Courant
They arrived hungry and in numbers too great to count, crawling over Nevada homes, businesses and roads, video shows.
“This has literally been the worst day of my life. Well, maybe not the worst, but it’s definitely the most disgusting by far,” said Colette Reynolds in a viral TikTok video, with collected Mormon crickets all around her house – on the sidewalk, the walls and in the grass.
“I’m honestly terrified to go back in because they’re there and they’re jumping at you,” she said, calling the insect invasion “absolutely vicious.”
In a follow-up video, a man uses a leaf blower to get bugs away from the front door while he picks up packages.
“Oh thank God my hero is here,” she says. “He looks disgusted and defeated, just like me.”
Mormon crickets, which are actually a kind of katydid, are common in the region — including parts of Nevada, Utah and Idaho, the Idaho Statesman reported.
A city in northeastern Nevada, Elkohas experienced an invasion of disgusting proportions, video shows.
“You can see that they move and crawl, and creeps all the way and it makes your skin crawl,” Elko resident Stephanie Garrett told SkyNews. “It’s just so gross.”
State workers have been in the interest of security plowing and sanding highways at Elko to rid them of dead Mormon crickets, the Nevada Department of Transportation said in a June 15 Facebook post.
“These signs on area highways remind us to TAKE IT SLOW when crickets make for potentially slippery driving,” the post read.
While they can’t actually hurt people, they can have destroyed crops, according to the University of Nevada, emerge in large numbers to feed on plants. And if there are no plants around to eat, the Mormon crickets will just feast on each other.
Plus, to use a very scientific term, they’re gross.
When crushed, they tend to give off a particularly strong and unpleasant odor, the Idaho Statesman reported.
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“Not only do Mormon crickets eat plants that cause damage or economic loss, their presence among them can be detrimental,” according to the University of Arizona. “Structures and hardscapes can be superficially stained with feces or crushed crickets, creating cleaning costs for property managers of condominiums, parks, golf courses, etc., or homeowners.”
Mormon cricket outbreaks tend to last between 4 and 6 years and will decline naturally thanks to predators, Nevada state entomologist Jeff Knight told NBC. In the meantime, residents will have to deal with it.
“A lot of people don’t like big, scary looking insects. These things get about the size of your thumb as an adult,” Nevada’s state entomologist, Jeff Knight, told NBC. “So if you have a few hundred or a few thousand in your yard, that can be quite terrifying for some people.”
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