The Mormon cricket (Anabrus simplex) is a large insect that can grow to almost three inches (seven centimeters) in length. They live throughout western North America in rangelands dominated by sagebrush and forbs.
Despite its name, the Mormon cricket is actually a shieldbacked katydid, not a cricket. It has not yet been determined whether this insect is a Mormon.
The Mormon cricket is flightless, but capable of traveling up to two kilometers a day in its swarming phase, during which it is a serious agricultural pest and traffic hazard.
Read more about Mormon Cricket: Appearance, Life Cycle, Swarming, Food, Control, Historical
Famous quotes containing the words mormon and/or cricket:
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—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)