By James Chiron, Dailymail.Com
Updated May 28, 2024 19:08, May 28, 2024 19:19
Millions of crickets have invaded Utah roads, making the asphalt slippery and causing accidents for several drivers over Memorial Day weekend.
The Eureka County Sheriff's Office responded to multiple crashes on Interstate 50 caused by “Mormon Cricket Mud.”
In a Facebook post on Saturday, the sheriff's office explained that many local authorities had a “busy morning responding to multiple crashes on the interstate due to rain and Mormon Cricket mud.”
The sheriff added that the clumps of congealed crickets, combined with heavy rains that fell on much of the country over the weekend, made Utah's roads “extremely slippery and with unpredictable braking distances.”
Shocking photos released by the sheriff's office showed several large trailers that lost control and crashed into the mud at Mormon Cricket, including one 18-wheeler that ended up completely on its side in a ditch on the side of the road.
A man named James Gear was driving west from Nevada to Utah in a truck with a trailer and said he was “unaware” at first that he had spotted a Mormon cricket.
“U.S. 50 is covered in crickets, I don't know what they are. The road is brown,” Geer told NBC4 in Eureka.
“I don't think there are any left on the truck, but the front of the trailer is covered in ground crickets.”
Social media is also filled with videos showing countless Mormon crickets infesting roads and buildings.
A TikTok user posted a video of themselves driving through Elcon, Nevada, last summer, where the normally open road was swarming with pests.
The video also shows a man riding a motorbike ahead of them zigzagging through the swarm of crickets.
Another TikTok video posted by user Kayla Adams shows crickets swarming around buildings and on roadsides, occasionally hopping around.
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Mormon crickets, unlike common house crickets, do not have fully formed wings and therefore cannot fly.
Mormon crickets are native to western North America and hatch in the spring. The larvae mature in early summer and continue to feed and lay eggs until late August, according to an article from Washington State University.
Additionally, according to a 2006 article in Live Science, Mormon crickets aren't actually crickets at all, but rather katydids, a type of insect related to grasshoppers.
The name comes from Mormon settlers who came to Utah in the mid-1800s.
In past years, Mormon crickets have also made an appearance in Idaho, where maintenance crews from the state's Department of Transportation have been on the scene to clear the crickets off the roads like snow.
There's good news for western drivers hoping to put an end to these creatures wreaking havoc on our roads.
Nevada state entomologist Jeff Knight told NBC News in 2023 that Mormon cricket outbreaks typically last four to six years before being eventually decimated by natural predators.
Prior to 2019, the cricket hadn't been seen in Nevada for years, NBC reported.
