Found on a trail in California, SF Bay Area. About an inch long.
this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2024
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Jerusalem Cricket (Potato Bug)
Thank you!
Interesting. It looks like it has the head and legs of a grasshopper, body of an ant and butt of a bee.
It's probably just because grasshoppers usually having wings, so you don't see their body sections. Like, this looks more like a 'normal' grasshopper to me and it still has similar body structure and coloring underneath its wings:
Having said that, I'm just looking at the grasshopper wikipedia and the variety is wild to begin with: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grasshopper#
Never liked grasshoppers always made my skin crawl. Only know about these guys because my parents get them in their home, never actually seen them though… just their legs, guess my parent’s cats find them pretty tasty
We used to find them all the time in my area, but I haven't seen one in decades.
Yeah I don’t see nearly as many of the critters I saw as a kid, though I spend far less time sifting through dirt as an adult
Good point. Also, we played in empty lots a bunch as a kid, but there aren't many anymore, which is probably part of the problem too.
I mean, it's good to recognize potential biases, but we're genuinely losing massive amounts of insects, see for example: https://www.boell.de/en/insect-deaths
It’s tragic but also highlights how dire it is to preserve our environment.
Hmmm nah, best I can do is pump more oil