Dead cricket smell stinks up Texas town
This is a potentially new species of cricket, or katydid. Nicknamed the “Crayola katydid” because of its bright colors, they are the only katydids known to employ chemical defenses, which are effective at repelling bird and mammalian predators.
Following a mild winter and rainy weather, businesses in Waco, Texas, have been overrun by the stench of millions of dead and decaying crickets, The Associated Press reported.
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Daily building and parking garage cleanings, obsessive sidewalk sweeping and air scrubbing machines have not been able to erase the foul smell, the Waco Tribune reported.
“It’s outside, it’s inside,” Jani Rodriquez, branch manager of Synergy Bank in Waco, where crickets have been dying inside the building walls, told the Waco Tribune. “You kind of get used to it when you’re here. But when you walk out and come back in, it’s really bad.”
Mild weather caused the crickets to appear earlier in April, rather than late August or early September, when they usually arrive, Fred Huffman, an entomologist and owner of GGA Pest Management in Waco, told the Waco Tribune.
While cricket carcasses typically dry up without emitting an odor, this year the carcasses have been exposed to more moisture, creating the stink, Huffman told the Waco Tribune.
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