Nevada Braces for Another Mormon Cricket Infestation

The crickets are coming. That is essentially what experts are telling Nevada residents, bidding them to prepare for an infestation the likes of which hasn't been seen since colonial times.

States like Nevada are no stranger to the Mormon cricket, a cannibalistic insect that is not actually a cricket, but is instead a member of the katydid family.

Every five to 10 years, some western states see a brief resurgence of the insects, where a mild winter and drought-related conditions facilitate dormant eggs laying in the ground to hatch all at once. The insects descend upon towns and agricultural sites en-masse, causing a nuisance for home owners and a thing of nightmares for farmers.

However, this year experts are especially worried given the number of the insects emerging in Nevada deserts after a particularly mild winter and the ensuing crushing heat this year.

"It is more than we've found for the last several years. We'll have to see what happens," Jeff Knight, Nevada's state entomologist, told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

Knight suggests that conditions this year might be just right for this year's infestation to be just as bad, if not worse, than a Nevada invasion that occurred in 2003 - during which Elko County officials declared a state of emergency after the pests became so abundant that roads were slick with crushed Mormon crickets.

If this year's infestation proves worse than 2003, it may very well prove to be the worst infestation in the West since the insects first earned their notoriety, as well as their name, in 1848.

The nasty pests famously descended on colonial Mormons in 1848 soon after the colonists had arrived in the Salt Lake Valley. According to the Mormon Historical Site Foundation (MHSF), the insects ravaged approximately 900 acres of wheat before a great flock of seagulls appeared to battle with the infestation.

"They would come by thousands and gobble up those great fat crickets that were as large as man's thumb... then they would adjourn... rest themselves a little, then back to slaying the black 'monsters' again," one Mormon who witnessed the event wrote, according to the MHSF.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints later commissioned a statue to commemorate the "miracle of gulls." To this day, seagulls remain a protected bird and the state bird of Utah.

However, whether miraculous gulls will be needed to save Utah's neighbor this summer remains to be seen.