Crunch time: Thousands of Mormon crickets plowed off Idaho highway

Transportation officials in southwestern Idaho had a messy job as thousands of Mormon crickets were scattered across highways.

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The Idaho Transportation Department posted a video of a heavy equipment operator plowing crickets off Highway 51, KBOI-TV reported. Too many crushed bugs along the highway can lead to slick spots, making it hazardous for motorists, according to the television station.

“I used to run some cows in Owyhee County,” Deputy John Cossel with the Owyhee County Sheriff’s Office told KBOI in 2018. “And they were so thick going across the highway, it made a slick spot and like driving on ice, cars would skid ‘cause there were so many crickets.”

“Our maintenance crews see a little of everything in southwest Idaho,” the Idaho Transportation Department wrote on Facebook. “If you get queasy easily, don’t watch this with the volume on.”

There are plenty of crackling noises as the plow runs over the dead crickets.

According to Britannica, the Mormon cricket (Anabrus simplex) is a well-known wingless species of shield-backed katydid in North America, where it once was a serious pest in the Great Plains. In Utah, the insects were a particular pest in the Salt Lake City area, devastating the crops of Mormon settlers in 1848.

Only the arrival of a flock of seagulls saved the settlers’ crops from complete destruction, according to Britannica.

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