Nine years after the last infestation by Mormon crickets, insects that can swarm to devastate crops and even turn cannibalistic, Nevada could be facing another invasion, officials say.
Named for an 1848 plague in Utah that devastated the crops of Mormon settlers, the crickets have been sighted in Nevada, where an infestation in 2005 covered almost 12 million acres in the state.
"It is more than we've found for the last several years," Nevada state entomologist Jeff Knight told the Reno Gazette-Journal. "We'll have to see what happens."
The insects -- not actually crickets, but rather a species of katydid -- can thrive in severe drought conditions similar to what Nevada has been experiencing in recent years, experts said.
They're found in most areas of western North America in sagebrush rangelands.
So far they've been detected in the desert regions in the northwest of the state, officials said, where they've not caused any problems -- yet.
Around the small town of Empire, about 100 miles from Reno, only one cricket per every five to 10 square yards has been seen, below the levels where any action such as laying out poison bait needs to be considered, Knight said.
"They're out in the middle of nowhere," Knight said. "They're not impacting anything or anybody."
Still, memories are still strong of a major infestation that lasted from 2000 to 2008.
In 2003 officials in Elko County announced a state of emergency when swarms of the insects invaded the city, creeping up the walls in a local hospital and leaving city streets slick with a layer of crushed crickets.
"It was probably the worst recorded infestation," in the state, Knight said, surpassing similar events in Nevada during the 1930s and 1040s.
The ability of the crickets, which can grow to almost three inches long, to survive in drought conditions may be the result of accompanying mild winters in which more of the eggs laid the previous summer can survive until hatching season in the following spring, experts say.
Eggs can sometimes lay dormant for as long as five years before hatching.
"It does seem to be drought years that start the higher populations," Knight says.
Those increased populations can lead to the crickets swarming and gobbling up crops, lawns and gardens -- and sometimes each other. In swarming, concentrations can reach as high as 100 crickets per square yard.
Although they cannot fly, an adult Mormon cricket can travel more than a mile a day.
