reeves84
June 8th, 2003, 4:02:34 PM
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/West/06/08/cricket.plague.ap/index.html
Mormon crickets are chewing their way through southwestern Idaho at an alarming rate, devouring crops and creating road hazards in what locals say is the worst outbreak since World War II.
The Boise County Commission has already declared a disaster and the state has posted warning signs on roads for the pests. Crickets smashed by cars on the road surface create a mush slicker than black ice.
"Their guts and stuff, they just get mashed," said Mike Cooper, a state Department of Agriculture official who persuaded the state last week to authorize $250,000 in cricket control measures.
The insects got their name after invading the fields of Mormon settlers in Utah in 1848. They're not actually crickets -- rather a species of shieldbacked katydid that belong to a grasshopper family.
Their voracious appetites take in anything. At a density of just one insect per square yard, they can consume 38 pounds of forage per acre as they pass through an area. They will even eat each other.
Mormon crickets are chewing their way through southwestern Idaho at an alarming rate, devouring crops and creating road hazards in what locals say is the worst outbreak since World War II.
The Boise County Commission has already declared a disaster and the state has posted warning signs on roads for the pests. Crickets smashed by cars on the road surface create a mush slicker than black ice.
"Their guts and stuff, they just get mashed," said Mike Cooper, a state Department of Agriculture official who persuaded the state last week to authorize $250,000 in cricket control measures.
The insects got their name after invading the fields of Mormon settlers in Utah in 1848. They're not actually crickets -- rather a species of shieldbacked katydid that belong to a grasshopper family.
Their voracious appetites take in anything. At a density of just one insect per square yard, they can consume 38 pounds of forage per acre as they pass through an area. They will even eat each other.