Maryland Crickets

These are the ugliest crickets I've ever seen! And I used to work with crickets....well, I did research on chameleons and we had to feed them live crickets, so I had to handle them - gross. Anyway, these Maryland crickets are like none I've seen before. They have a big round spider body and huge crazy legs. The big ones measure about an inch and a half.

They're known as "camel crickets", "spider crickets", or "greenhouse stone crickets". I just call em big and ugly bugs, squish them in a paper towel, and flush them down the toilet.

I found some more information on these while I was looking for these images. Apparently these bastards can live over a year. They have barbs on their legs that allow them to hang onto walls. That's actually where I found one this morning. I had to crush it's hard nasty exoskeleton in a tissue. Also, another blogger says they just hang out there, lying in wait on the wall, until they jump out at you!....and have the ability to bite when they're big enough. I don't know about that...I'll kill em before they can bite me I think.

The kitties like them, however. Bunny was tormenting one downstairs, one leg amputation at a time, before killing it. She looks innocent enough, but she's a ferocious beast!

Rx