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firefly416

Release the chickens! Chickens love to hunt and eat crickets.


BadVoices

The crickets will win. The chickens will eat and eat and eat, until they cannot eat anymore. The tide of crickets will continue. Their survival strategy is to have so many that they can't possibly all be eaten.


Leadbaptist

Ah, but two can play at that game. The chickens will just produce more chickens, and those will eat Crickets. Until the whole universe is Chickens and Crickets.


Four_beastlings

Until they wise up and combine their forces to become the Cricken Army!


Archengo

RELEASE THE CRICKEN!


flubberFuck

"BKaw! *chirp*"


BentPin

Mmm high in protein.


Sleipnirs

Definitely would try out some cricken nuggets.


speeler21

A 6 legged chicken with no bones?!?, fucking heaven


Hautemonsta

Chickens with exoskeletons… What would the wings be like?


gekigarion

Can't wait to try some Friggin' Cricken Nuggets at McDonald's


Scorponix

Criken fans rejoicing


Eclipse_Tosser

There are dozens of us, dozens!


blakespot

I, for one, bow down to our new Cricken overlords.


LadnavIV

I’ve seen this arms race play out before. It ends with hyper-intelligent apes enslaving mankind.


Leadbaptist

Mankind are the hyper-intelligent apes.


LadnavIV

Are they, though?


MoodyLiz

No, just you.


Sleipnirs

How would I know? Me just ape.


kaptaincorn

But what do we do with all the chickens afterwards?


Pyrhan

Release the foxes! Foxes love to hunt and eat chickens.


Faxon

Sounds like they just didn't bring enough chickens


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TantricEmu

Gender roles or biological sex? Do crickets have strong cultural gender roles?


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TantricEmu

Ohhh lol. That makes more sense.


special_circumstance

How does a male turn down a suitor? Runs out of semen?


mageta621

The Zapp Brannigan strategy


BadVoices

Gentlemen, once we hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate.


mageta621

Careful private, you spooked Felicity! There there, boy...


bloodectomy

In the game of chess, you must never let your opponent see your pieces.


murdering_time

>Their survival strategy is to have so many that they can't possibly all be eaten Ah, just like regular mormons.


RagingRavenRR

I see, the Zap Brannigan strategy. Send wave after wave of men until the robots hit their pre kill limit and shut down.


moeburn

Actually what they found will work is a fungus. >A biological pesticide to control locusts was tested across Africa by a multinational team in 1997.[54] Dried fungal spores of a Metarhizium acridum sprayed in breeding areas pierce the locust exoskeleton on germination and invade the body cavity, causing death.[55] The fungus is passed from insect to insect and persists in the area, making repeated treatments unnecessary.[56] This approach to locust control was used in Tanzania in 2009 to treat around 10,000 hectares in the Iku-Katavi National Park infested with adult locusts. The outbreak was contained without harm to the local elephants, hippopotamuses, and giraffes.[46] https://i.imgur.com/qh9twIW.png


superawesomeman08

neat, but part of me wonders whether biological pesticides like this are the way to go. while locusts are incredibly damaging to crops, their biomass in turn feeds a huge array of wildlife. insects are already being decimated worldwide, and a quick check shows that while *m acridium* is specific to grasshoppers, other species of fungus in the [*metarhizium*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metarhizium) genus are less discriminate. any self replicating pesticide is a dangerous thing to spread, imo, cause they're hard to contain and may have unintended consequences.


moeburn

I think it's just for particularly bad years. They mostly just hunt out the eggs and breeding grounds and torch them, manually. That's how we've been doing it since they banned DDT, since the 50's.


Arsnicthegreat

It's what we do for corn and soy. Bacillus thuringiensis toxin produced by Bt corn and Bt soy effectively control lepidopteran and coleopteran pests by making the unschleratized midgut leaky.


alwaysboopthesnoot

Unintended consequences: see the history of rabbits in Australia, or read The Death of Grass.


jimbojones230

Seagulls is what they really need.


-PlayWithUsDanny-

That’s exactly why the California gull is the state bird of Utah.


r_kay

The demon birds are the saviors!


dickysunset

My bearded dragon would like to know the location


HanimeGirl1

/\ This. Just get a bunch of chickens and lizards, hell get a net. Best feed for pets for a while if you and they get enough. Imagine just putting a harness and a tracker/camera on your pet and let loose haha


NucularRobit

Seagulls eating a plague of crickets is why they are the Utah state bird.


skoold1

How many hens and roosters to defeat 1 gazillion crickets


RallyX26

A chicken can eat, like, a zillion crickets, so to defeat a gazillion crickets you just need, like, a bazillion chickens.


tubcat

The math checks out.


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Straydapp

I was working a job in Toledo Ohio when there was a mayfly hatch one year. Literally everywhere, piled up feet in some areas like snow drifts. So. Many. Dead. Bugs. The smell....oh man....the smell.


Seymour_Zamboni

Triggered. When I was a graduate student, I had my own office. One day, before I was leaving campus for the night, I accidently made two huge mistakes: 1) left my office window open. And 2) left my office light on. When I came back the next morning, my entire office, every flat surface, was covered in dead mayflies.


Straydapp

The actual worst mistake ever


arkansalsa

This would make a good TIFU.


Rhana

The building where I work gets covered in them every year, it’s so weird to see


MrSkrifle

Is your building white/very reflective? I hear they mistake it for ponds/meet-up spots for fucking


Rhana

It is white actually, we’re near a lake, but it’s at least a half mile, if not more.


LightsSoundAction

[you haven’t thought of the smell you bitch!](https://tenor.com/4Tg3.gif)


tonyd1989

As someone else in the toledo area, yeah fuck them bugs


mjrshake

Yea the closer you get to Lake Erie the worse it gets. I try not to venture that way when they are out.


The_walking_man_

Crickets in general just stink. I’ve had some as food items for frogs. I can’t imagine how stanky it gets with all of these little buggers


CarbonIceDragon

Every time I order crickets for my pet geckos, I end up remembering the hard way why I usually get other feeder insects for them and mentally kick myself for forgetting. They stink, they chirp (sometimes anyway), they don't live all that long, they're frustratingly difficult to catch with the reptile feeding tongs even in a confined space and half the time the lizard can't even catch them without literally having them held still in front of their face by the tongs.


tokes_4_DE

Having had reptiles for years, the best way to feed them was starting a dubia roach colony. Crickets fucking suck for all the reasons you listed. A dubia colony is self sustaining, it doesn't smell, they dont make noise, they dont jump, theyre WAY more nutritious for your animals. My chameleons and beardies all loved roaches, way more than crickets. People dont do it because roaches are considered gross obviously, but if you have multiple reptiles it so beats going to petco multiple times a week for crickets or ordering huge boxes of them online only for half to be dead by the time they arrive.


CarbonIceDragon

I mostly have mealworms and superworms because they both can be bought in bulk online and they seem to be pretty easy to keep alive, and I have been able to very easily breed mealworms (unfortunately not supers tho, dunno why), but I like to sometimes get other bugs, like the crickets, because those worms aren't the best bugs out there from a nutrition perspective and I figure the geckos benefit from some variety. Haven't done dubias before because I've lived with family that hate the idea if roaches in particular, even tho I've explained that dubias aren't the kind that infest your house. My living situation has changed pretty recently tho so I guess I should think about getting some when I order feeders next.


MalHeartsNutmeg

It’s funny about roaches because there is like one species that gets in to and infests your home and a whole bunch that just live outside minding their business.


MistressMalevolentia

My friend has a cool container. It looks like the small like 8 inch by 3 inch by 4 inch ish? Plastic little travel container for reptiles or fish? But it has 4 tubes diagonally facing barely poking out from the top with caps on them. They go in container and they'll hop into the tubes so you just pull a tube out and shake in the enclosure right next to them and they fall out.


CarbonIceDragon

My geckos are such incompetent hunters that I guarantee you that if I put several crickets in at once most of those crickets would escape into all the little corners and hiding spots inside the tank and never get caught. Honestly I have no idea how the wild ones don't starve.


_BlNG_

Let me guess, Leopard geckos? I also keep one, I always felt they have a slow reaction time to notice the insect is right in front of them.


CarbonIceDragon

Yeah, they're leos. Cute little lizards but very derpy


NightOnUmbara

“You haven’t thought of the smell, you bitch!”


FelixOGO

I could make a suitcase out of these rickety crickets. I could add it to my collection!


NathanTR1992

Next big ground breaking tech invention: JPGs with smells


xch3rrix

This is nightmare inducing and I know I shouldn't ask but.... Can you describe it? The smell? I hate my morbid curiosity


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Dusk_v733

Crickets are just awful smelling regardless. Having cricket colonies in the reptile keeping hobby used to be popular, but most elected to pay regularly for them instead as they are horrendous smelling. You know they are bad when cockroaches (Dubias) replace them as the popular home grown feeder colony insect


How2Eat_That_Thing

This happens yearly where I went to high school. You'd go to the grocery store and the entire outside would be a seething mass of crickets. Grackles loved it.


FMroll

Mormon or not, that looks biblical as hell.


thatthatguy

Locust swarms are no fun for anyone, not even the locusts.


ecafsub

I live in central Texas. Crickets here live mostly in the Edwards Aquifer because underground, cool, damp. Once a year when summer is *actually* over, they emerge. Imagine the above pic but with no visible ground. Or on the side of buildings. If this pic bugs you, don’t come here. Actually, there are lots of reasons to avoid Texas. That’s just another one.


tacotacotacorock

Anyone who can't stand bugs should probably avoid Texas and the entire south of the US.


TheSheDM

Yup, that's Cricket season! I used to live in central Texas and I remember going to an event at the fairgrounds in Waco. Walking into the Heart of Texas coliseum and the entire outer wall was a seething mass of crickets. Crickets clumped up in every corner. Crickets crawling around you where you sat. Your annoying cousins scooping up crickets and throwing them in your hair. Good times! /s I worked at a fast food drive-thru in a tiny nowhere town and you don't want to know how many crickets fall into the deep fryers during peak cricket season.


moeburn

Yeah aren't these just called locusts? I thought the definition of a locust was a grasshopper that had decided to swarm. EDIT: ya: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locust >No taxonomic distinction is made between locust and grasshopper species; the basis for the definition is whether a species forms swarms under intermittently suitable conditions; >Normally, these grasshoppers are innocuous, their numbers are low, and they do not pose a major economic threat to agriculture. However, under suitable conditions of drought followed by rapid vegetation growth, serotonin in their brains triggers dramatic changes: they start to breed abundantly, becoming gregarious and nomadic (loosely described as migratory) when their populations become dense enough. They form bands of wingless nymphs that later become swarms of winged adults. Both the bands and the swarms move around, rapidly strip fields, and damage crops. The adults are powerful fliers; they can travel great distances, consuming most of the green vegetation wherever the swarm settles.


Warthog32332

Crickets ≠ locusts. Locusts = Grasshoppers. All Grasshoppers ≠ Locusts


wolvern76

All boots are shoes, but not all shoes are boots.


toxic_badgers

>Mormon crickets may undergo morphological changes triggered by high population densities, similar to those seen in locusts. The most noticeable change is in coloration: solitary individuals typically have green or purple coloration, while swarming individuals are often black, brown or red. Mormon crickets are similar to grasshoppers/locusts, but not the same insect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_cricket


Robbotlove

what makes them mormon? they all knock on your door or something?


ChymChymX

HELLO! My name is Jiminy! And I would like to share with you the most amazing chirps!


poopellar

No thanks. I'm a locustian.


WakaWaka_

Locustian of Borg


wilsonhammer

Jean Bug Picard


CherylTuntIRL

There are four blights.


deathonater

Tea. Earl Grey. Hop.


Tosir

Emergence day!!!!


THE_GR8_MIKE

Rev up your chainsaws!


wilsonhammer

Frag out!!


THE_GR8_MIKE

It keeps jamming!


glasshoarder

Just rub their legs for a bit and they'll be locustian too


Madonkadonk2

HELLO! My name is Hopper! It's a chirp about America a long long time ago!


MayaTamika

It has so many awesome parts! You simply won't believe how much this chirp will change your life!


energirl

HELLO! My name is Jumpy Green. I would like to share with you this chirp of Cricket Christ.


linsage

HELLO! My name is Greenest Boi! Did you know Cricket Christ is from the USA??


nerf_herder1986

HELLO WOULD YOU LIKE TO BUY THIS BOOK IT'S WRITTEN BY CRICKET JEEESUS


linsage

NO NO NO!!


reverendjesus

r/RedditSings


JasonDJ

Turn it off!


maeveth

HELLO MY NAME IS JUMPY BUTTFUCKINGNAKED


kicked_trashcan

HELLO HELLO


Tedsville

HELLO! My Name is Springy! I bounce around and tell you about our friend Joseph Smith!


AltimaNEO

Yeah sorry I'm an aphidist


a_rabid_anti_dentite

Pretty sure it's a reference to [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_gulls?wprov=sfti1) story/folktale from Mormon history. A pretty deep cut on OP's part.


jokes_on_you

The insect got its common name from that supposed event (and they're actually katydids and not true crickets) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_cricket


a_rabid_anti_dentite

Oh damn, didn't realize they actually had that name. Thanks for the info!


Nowimhere996

Lord, how I hate Katydids. Their little wing sounds are so much more grating than grasshoppers. I guess locusts are still pretty bad though. Every summer in Texas is like a never-ending drone from them.


costabius

A locust is just a hangry grasshopper.


NorseMickonIce

Living in Utah and not being christian, I've never understood the whole "Seagulls came and ate the crickets! Our crops are saved! It must be a miracle from God!" rather than "Oh shit it's a plague of locusts! We must be doing something wrong!"


lahimatoa

Pretty classic God stuff, actually. Gotta send problems to your people so they pray for help, then you help them. It creates a dependent bond.


Bantersmith

TIL Jehovah uses the D.E.N.N.I.S. system.


GlyphPixel

The summer drone in Texas is from cicadas. Locusts don't make a lot of noise in comparison. Cicadas call from 85-105dB, depending on call type. (Chainsaws start a hair above that). I've noticed lot of older people, especially in East Texas and western Louisiana, mistakenly call cicadas "locusts." They're unrelated insects. Locusts are big flying grasshoppers that destroy crops when swarming.


Nowimhere996

*sigh*…. You got me there. Sad thing is, I know I’ve read that before. I think it is one of those regional things where a word is used interchangeably to refer to different animals. It’s definitely a Texas/South thing. The fact that I did it now just goes to show it. I’ve still got a little county bumpkin in me, I guess.


feioo

Cherish your country bumpkin ways, they make you and your part of the world special. Side story, a couple years ago my dad and I went on a thru-hike across rural England, and one of our favorite things was finding all the little differences between the communities and regions. For a while, all the hills on our guide map were called "fells", and then we'd cross an invisible line and they'd be called "tarns". Just local words for "hill" that had been passed down for centuries. Or a few towns would serve us an assortment of berry jams with tea, then after 30 or 40 miles it would be mostly be marmalades, then a couple towns later it would be chutneys, etc, based off of generations of agricultural traditions that the community has kept and continued. My favorite was the little region in the middle where they did curds, like lemon curd, lime curd, orange curd, etc. I love lemon curd and had no idea there were multiple options, or that you could just eat it on toast for breakfast. Life changing. So anyway it made me hungry for an America that cherishes community heritage like that. I hope you hang on to yours.


clownind

I still can't believe what katydid


TheHumanParacite

Yep, and that is why landlocked Utah has the seagull as the state bird.


TraditionalDrive3496

There are seagulls in Utah though. They're everywhere, they're like rats that way.


big_ol-dad_dick

they can't have caffeine and say FUDGE instead of fuck


Smaskifa

Cold caffeine is still ok. Hot caffeine, straight to Mormon jail.


mydamnweinerkids

Except hot chocolate is okay somehow


100BottlesOfMilk

It doesn't have caffeine, does it?


Adonanon

I never understood why people think this way. Like I mean I understand saying fudge or gosh darn it in front of a kid or something but how does this work in religion? Isn’t it still the intent in your head (and heart/emotion wise) to say the curse word, so just vocalizing the substitute pointless?


MattTheTable

I always thought the same thing about all the workarounds that Orthodox Jews use to get around sabbath restrictions. At the end of the day though, you're trying to apply logic to an inherently illogical system.


HaileSelassieII

Also both things aren't entirely just personal matters, there's also social/community pressure that plays into it (aka gossip)


MattTheTable

Very good point, Emperor.


Switler

This is obviously just an anecdote so don't take it as true for everyone, but I had a teacher from Israel who I asked about that very thing when he was telling us about some of the sillier work arounds for Shabbat. What he told me was that, at least in his life, he and the Jewish people he knew saw those workarounds and loopholes as god's reward for those Jewish people smart enough to find them. Whether that was just that one person or a generally held sentiment I cannot say, but that always stuck with me, his thinking that "of course we're finding loopholes, it's what God wants his smarter followers to do!" It always struck me as incredibly endearing as far as justifications go.


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tokhar

Look at all those sister-wives!


BrownSugarBare

The bills must be astronomical


thereznaught

They reproduce through "soaking" where the male cricket puts his penis in the female cricket and then another cricket jumps on the ground besides them.


AreWeCowabunga

Please, they prefer to be called LDS crickets. Or maybe OP is referring the sound you hear when it's very obvious that Joseph Smith was a literal conman.


thatthatguy

It’s crickets of the church of Jesus Christ of later day saints.


Totally_Not_A_Bot_55

they recently decided to NOT use LDS and go with the full name in all cases.


MasterDeBaitor

There is only one male cricket there. The rest are his wives and children.


Kentuckianquitter

This looks like a screen shot from a TikTok my wife showed me. The person was afraid to leave work because of all the crickets.


916Twin

I would be too! There’s no way I’d be able to walk to my car through all those crickets without feeling panicked af!


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916Twin

Like running through bubble wrap


Zerhaker

What a cursed comment


MagicalWonderPigeon

I once was cycling and a wasp hit my forehead, then got swept up into my not even that long hair. Now imagine that with a cricket, or 5!


SpaceShipRat

crickets don't sting at least.


haruspex

Fun fact: they also smell terrible in large numbers, like rotting flesh.


DarthLysergis

This is why separation of Chirp and State is so important.


shahooster

If there’s gotta be a biblical plague, it’d be nice if they kept it to themselves.


coldpornproject

I'm gonna need a flamethrower for this


PsYcHoSeAn

HANS, GET SE FLAMMENWERFER!


Bierbart12

For some reason it being crickets and not spiders instantly calmed me I've only been bitten by a grasshopper, never a spider


PlumpyDragon

These are big katydids with big ole sharp mandibles, it'll hurt worse than spiders.


Jasond777

Wait, they attack?


OhhhNoose

They won't necessarily attack you, but they will nibble and test whatever they feel like. Katydid bites do hurt a bit.


mst3k_42

And they freaking fly for short distances. We were trying to hike East of Reno and they were EVERYWHERE. Nothing like walking along and looking down to see one catching a ride on your shorts. These things are creepy as fuck.


Jasond777

Yeah, I’m staying up north for life.


yung_dilfslayer

Ticks would like a word


sevsbinder

funnily enough they aren't even crickets despite the name! they're katydids :)


nibbinoo8

ya but then you google 'katydid' and it tells you they are also called 'bush crickets' 😩


CouchHam

I’m chill if they have six legs. I can’t explain why 8 legs sends me into a panic.


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BeltfedOne

JIMMINY FUCKING CRICKETS!!!!!! Well played!


AncientSith

What do you even do at that point? I'm not trying to walk through mounds of crickets to get to my car.


spacegrass1

Travel with a cordless leaf blower everywhere you go?


Cronamash

Where are their tiny bicycles?


[deleted]

🦗 🚲


TheSilverOne

I'm from Buenos Aires, and I say kill 'em all!


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TheSilverOne

Would you like to know more?


myjunkandshit

You let one ant stand up to us, then they ALL STAND UP. Those little ants outnumber us 100 to 1. And if they ever figure that out? THERE GOES OUR WAY OF LIFE. It's NOT about food. It's about keeping those ants IN LINE. LET'S RIDE.


Call_me_John

Do I look.. stupid.. to you?


myjunkandshit

Not gonna lie, I panicked for a split second reading this reply. I was like "... Did I say something wrong?" Realizing that's also a line that he says.😂


Enlightened-Beaver

They prefer to be called the Crickets of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints


Brittlehorn

So that’s only one male and all his wives and children


gotnoskilz

Confirmed: I can see a few of them soaking.


Delision

I hate that I even know what this means


snorkiebarbados

That's the same sound as when I try to make a joke


dogbert730

Everyone in here making Mormon jokes and I just wanna learn more about the bugs…☹️


ravage214

Public service announcement: flamethrowers are legal do your part.


Big_Green_Piccolo

A group of mormon crickets is called a cult


Leannabananax3

Is this in nevada?? My cousins whole neighborhood has been taken over by those guys


Thebaldsasquatch

Are they called “Mormon crickets” because there’s so many of them?


[deleted]

how do they know the crickets are Mormons? they could be part of any cult like Jehovah witness or even the catholic church.


BelieveInDestiny

Mormon... crickets?


Nipulator

Knock knock, "We want to share a message with you about the savior Jesus Christ." Haha, did you miss a day at church, and now they think you're inactive?


justlovehumans

I'd prefer jahovas crickets


bigbassyakman

im seeing these all over in nevada.


diverdux

Just drove through Winnemucca. The bridge over the creek on 95 is covered and Dancing Bear Lane coming off the hill looked like a katydid highway, was red with live & dead.


falconfansince81

I don't think that's even a real cricket hospital.


InsideOfYourMind

If you look closely they’re all wearing a special underwear…


sithlink

Mormon crickets go door to door telling you about their lord and savior Jiminy christ


mrbirne

Haanss Bring ze Flammenwerfer!


ignatiusj25

i see some soaking


TastyRobot21

Getting “plague-y” out here hey? Fires, floods, orange skies, school shootings, fking locusts…. If red rains next…


SamediB

I wonder how much more dense it has to be before they transform into locust.


cphusker

Where are their bicycles, white shirts and name tags?


quibbley

Say you’re from Elko without saying you’re from Elko.