You have never seen anything like this. Swarms of red-colored Mormon crickets crawling en masse, eating everything they come upon, including the ranchers’ crops. Right now, they’re swarming the Elko, Nevada, area, where residents are battling to get rid of them with brooms, leaf blowers, vacuums, snow plows — all to no avail, at least for now.
If you plan to be driving through the area soon (along I-80), be careful. As motorists drive over the insects and crush them, they leave a slimy, oily mess that can send vehicles slipping and sliding like they would hitting an oil slick. “It’s almost like a biblical plague,” resident Dana Dolan told The Associated Press last week.
The AP reports that the Mormon crickets leave behind a horrible stench, akin to burning flesh, that forces residents to plug their noses while driving. They stick to tires and the bottoms of shoes, and their carcasses are just about everywhere. When the crickets move, it sounds like rain, Dolan said.
Watch the short video below, and be glad you’re not in Elko right now (and if you are, we feel your pain).
##RVT1110b
I do believe this is the same thing that has happened other places. We had them horribly bad in North Texas one year. They were thick and nasty anywhere there were lights at night. You couldn’t walk in or out of the grocery store without going through hordes of them. They crawled up walls, covered sidewalks and of course, many managed to get inside.
It’s seasonal and weather dependent. All the rain likely contributed to their mating and reproduction boon. The one good thing, they have a short lifespan.
Yuk
Where did the swarm originate and what were the conditions? Perhaps a re-occurrence can be avoided. Pretty nasty.
Believe it is just nature doing its thing. They return every 4 to 6 yrs, I believe I just read. Worse than the Cicada’s which are at least just every 17 yrs (that was an experience, caught them in Gettysburg…yuck). Ironically, we stopped at a truck stop in Mill City, NV earlier this month. Decided to take a break for lunch and parked in the parking area. Husband spotted something moving on the ground 20 ft in front of our motorhome. Checked it out and it was a Mormon cricket…just one. Scout??😂 Glad we came through when we did!
When I was still truckin’ I had a Reno/Salt Lake run. I would run into this stuff around Winnemucca and take to driving with my right side wheels well onto the shoulder (like almost every other trucker) to try to kill as many of these beasts as possible. The shoulder would be blood red with crushed bodies. It didn’t seem to make any difference population-wise but it made me feel good. A friend who is still working tells me he shoots for killing “A million a mile”. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen!
They’re also swarming again in Winnemucca, NV this year. The video doesn’t do them justice. They’re about 2″ long and as big around as one’s thumb. The females have a long protrusion from their rear end that they poke in the ground to leave their eggs behind to hatch in another season when conditions are ripe. They’re ugly and they’re quite messy as they’ll kill and eat one of their own if it gets in their way as they swarm, and they leave behind a horrendous mess of pieces/parts, guts and slime along their path. Drove through a swarm on the way from Winnemucca, NV to Nampa, ID a couple of years back. It took us days to clean up the mess it created along the bottom of the coach and in the wheel wells.
Nasty.
Yuck!
Need the seagulls to come in and eat them, like the first year the Mormons were in Salt Lake City.