Millions of crickets are invading the roads of Utah, making the asphalt slippery and causing multiple drivers to crash over Memorial Day weekend.
The Eureka County Sheriff's Office responded to multiple crashes on Interstate 50 as result of 'Mormon Cricket sludge.'
The sheriff's office explained in a Saturday Facebook post that numerous local authorities 'had a busy morning responding to multiple crashes on the Interstate due to rain and Mormon Cricket sludge.'
The combination of congealed masses of these crickets and the heavy rain that dumped over much of the country last weekend had made Utah roadways 'extremely slick and unpredictable for stopping distance,' the sheriff added.
Incredible photos shared by the sheriff's office show multiple separate semi trucks that lost control and crashed as a result of the Mormon cricket sludge. One 18-wheeler was completely sideways in a ditch off to the side of the road.
A truck in Eureka county is seen knocked off the road by the thousands of Mormon crickets on the now treacherous road
Another 18-wheeler was flipped completely on its side
A man named James Gear was driving west from Nevada to Utah in his truck with an attached trailer and said he initially 'didn't know' that he was seeing Mormon Crickets.
'U.S. 50 is covered in these crickets, and we weren't sure what they were. The roads are brown,' Gear told NBC 4 in Eureka.
'I don't think I have any left on the truck, but the front of our trailer is covered in these ground crickets.'
Social media is also flush with videos depicting roads and buildings crawling with countless Mormon crickets.
A TikTok user posted a video of herself driving through Elkon, Nevada, last summer and what was usually an open road, was swarming with the pests.
The damage to the front of this truck was extensive, with multiple other accidents being reported by police
Pictured: James Gear, who was driving on roads in Nevada and Utah that were slick with Mormon crickets
The video also shows a motorcyclist that's ahead of them zig zagging through crowds of the crickets.
Another TikTok video from user Kyra Adams shows the crickets swarming around a building and off the shoulder of a road. They're also seen jumping at times.
Mormon crickets don't have fully formed wings, so they can't fly, unlike a typical house cricket.
Mormon crickets are native to western North America and hatch during the spring months. The nymphs mature in early summer and continue to feed and lay eggs up until late August, according to a Washington State University article.
Additionally, Mormon crickets aren't actually crickets but shield-backed katydids, a species of insect more closely related to grasshoppers, according to a 2006 article from Live Science.
A TikTok user shows the massive amount of crickets she had to drive through in Elkon, Nevada last summer
A Mormon cricket is pictured wandering through grass
They just got that name from Mormon settlers who were moving into Utah in the mid-1800's.
In past years, Mormon crickets have appeared in Idaho as well, where maintenance crews from the state's transportation department showed up to plow the crickets off the road like they were snow.
There is good news for drivers out west hoping for end to these critters that are wreaking havoc on the roads.
Nevada’s state entomologist Jeff Knight told NBC News in 2023 that outbreaks of Mormon crickets usually last for four to six years before natural predators eventually thin them out.
Before 2019, Nevada went years without seeing these crickets, NBC reported.
