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Swarms of Mormon crickets are wreaking havoc in northern Nevada, swarming fields, roads, homes and storefronts.
Gary Doherty of Spring Creek, Nevada; told ABC4 The side of his house was completely covered in bugs, and he spent an hour trying to remove them, but to no avail.
“That’s crazy. It’s unnerving,” he said of the creatures, which can grow up to 2 inches long.
“You can’t even open the door or the crickets will come rushing in.”
Kyla Adams, another Spring Creek resident, posted a video on TikTok on May 14 titled “.Mormon Cricket Invasion 2024” showed large numbers of insects covering sidewalks and roads.
At the end of the clip, which has been viewed more than 32,000 times, she warns: “Don’t forget to wipe your guts on your boots!”
“They cover our homes and buildings, leave blood on the roads when run over, and leave a terrible smell when sitting in the hot summer sun.” Adams told Storyful.
“Imagine you just want to go to church and this is what you see.”
The creatures are not actually crickets, but part of the shieldback katydid subfamily, and are also disrupting business for shopkeepers in the area.
“Flower shops have a certain kind of aesthetic that doesn’t have to do with crickets all over the building and jumping all over the place. This is the worst thing that’s happened to me since I’ve lived here,” Petal of Spring Creek said.・Merchant’s owner Kelsey Merchant told the magazine.
The insect, which got its name after it invaded the fields of Mormon settlers in the 1800s, is native to Nevada and Utah.
Last year, the Post reported on an infestation of Mormon crickets in a home in Elko, Nevada, which received 2.3 million views on TikTok.
“It’s a dirty, mean, smelly, disgusting, flesh-eating, cannibal cricket. It’s huge,” homeowner Colette Reynolds told The Post at the time.
“It’s disgusting. I probably killed about 5,000 people. And the next day, the situation was ten times worse…I’m a prisoner in my own home.”
