Mormon Cricket

Anabrus simplex — the Mormon cricket — is a flightless shieldback katydid (family Tettigoniidae, NOT a true cricket) endemic to the western US and adjacent Canada and Mexico. The species ranges from sage-steppe and grassland to high-elevation alpine meadow. Despite the misleading common name, Mormon crickets are wingless and walk everywhere — but they walk in massive synchronized bands that can stretch over kilometers and contain millions of individuals. During outbreak years, marching bands consume essentially everything in their path: range grasses, small shrubs, agricultural crops, garden plants, and even other Mormon crickets (cannibalism is part of the marching dynamic — individuals at the front of the band move forward to escape being eaten by the individuals behind). The species' name commemorates the 1848 'Miracle of the Gulls' incident: in spring 1848, the first major Mormon settlement in Utah's Salt Lake Valley faced a massive Mormon cricket invasion threatening the year's wheat crop. Flocks of California gulls (Larus californicus) reportedly arrived to feed on the crickets and saved enough of the harvest to support the settlers through winter. The seagull is now Utah's state bird, and the 'Miracle of the Gulls' is a foundational story in Mormon religious tradition. Modern Mormon cricket outbreaks across Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and the Dakotas cause tens of millions of dollars in rangeland and agricultural damage in outbreak years (most recently severe in 2003-2010 and again in 2021-2024). Federal and state pest-control programs use targeted bait applications and biological control to limit outbreak severity.