The Odd-Looking Jerusalem Cricket

While digging up my soon to be vegetable garden about a month ago, I got a somewhat scary surprise. The garden was overgrown with dead grass, fallen leaves and other assorted detritus (fancy word for debris), so I had to use a pick axe and shovel to turn the soil. Well, when I plunged in my shovel and picked up a pile of twigs and leaves, a very large and odd looking bug scampered out from where I'd just dug. I jumped back, because it was like nothing I'd ever seen. At first, I thought this thing was a giant bee or maybe a wasp, although it didn't really look like any of the bumble bees I'd ever seen.

I didn't really want to get too close, in case it was aggressive or had a stinger, so I watched for a minute as it burrowed beneath the debris. It didn't seem aggressive, so I scooped it up on my shovel. It was about two inches long, or maybe a little more. That's big for a bug. Just to make sure it really was an insect and not a spider (I don't like spiders of any size), I counted the legs. Six legs. An insect. It was also segmented like an insect; abdomen, thorax and head. Its abdomen was striped, reminiscent of a bee, but its legs were odd, cricket or grasshopper like. Was this some sort of morphed combination of insects?

Once it was on my shovel, it calmed down and didn't move much at all, so I plopped it into a container so I could do a little research on it. It took me a while to find what I was looking for on the Internet, but I did, and this is what I found out.

It's called a Jerusalem Cricket, of the genus Stenopelmatus. There are several different species and I read that they are not true crickets. It's not some genetically engineered conglomerate of insects at all. They live in habitats along the Pacific Coast all the way down as far as Mexico. They are also called potato bugs. These odd creatures like to hide burrowed beneath garden debris and while they do have massive mandibles, they won't generally bite, unless maybe you stick your finger near their mouth, in which case you probably deserve the bite. The mandibles are for tearing bits of decomposing organic matter. Basically, it eats dead plants. It's not harmful to your garden, unless you want your dead plant material left alone. They can also eat some other insects. Yummy.

These critters are also found in other countries like Australia, although different species from what I have in my garden. I live in Southern California, right where its habitat is. Some species are smaller than my Jerusalem Cricket. Although I dug up my entire garden, I never found another one. I also relocated my Jerusalem Cricket so that I wouldn't accidentally hurt him.

I haven't seen any sign of him since, but I'm sure he's burrowing through debris and having a great time. If you find one, don't hurt it because it's native to the Pacific Coastal areas and native insects are beneficial to the environment.