# Oklahoma City cricket invasion.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-city-cricket-invasion/668111
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [September 5, 2013, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-city-cricket-invasion/668111 "2013-09-05T20:41:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2013, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-city-cricket-invasion/668111/1 "2013-09-05T20:41:40Z")
The photos of that McDonalds are just amazing. 😛 I’ve fished with crickets most of my life and they don’t bother me. But theres an ick factor to these photos. Crawling up the walls? Covering the sidewalks? It must make a nice crunch when people walk.
> **[PHOTOS: This Is What A Cricket Invasion Looks Like](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/oklahoma-cricket-invasion_n_3866683?ir=Green)**
>
> PHOTOS: This Is What A Cricket Invasion Looks Like
> **[Biblical swarms of crickets terrorize Oklahoma](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2412875/Biblical-plagues-crickets-Oklahoma-shrieking-calls-smell-like-rotted-meat.html)**
>
> A plague of crickets has descended on towns across Oklahoma and gross-out residents won't get a reprieve for weeks to come.
[http://now.msn.com/oklahoma-city-crickets-infesting-downtown](http://now.msn.com/oklahoma-city-crickets-infesting-downtown)
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### Author:  [@Capt\_Kirk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt_Kirk)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2013, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-city-cricket-invasion/668111/2 "2013-09-05T21:14:01Z")
At the end of the HuffPro clip…
Woman’s voice(off stage) " I seriously think there _may_ be a cricket in my pants"
I needed that, thanks
**Capt**
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### Author:  [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2013, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-city-cricket-invasion/668111/3 "2013-09-05T21:36:43Z")
People wonder why the Bible Belt is that way. It’s like living in the Old Testament.
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### Author:  [@miss\_elizabeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/miss_elizabeth)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2013, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-city-cricket-invasion/668111/4 "2013-09-05T22:11:07Z")
My son’s bearded dragon would have a blast out there!
As for me, yuck.
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### Author:  [@lavenderviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lavenderviolet)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2013, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-city-cricket-invasion/668111/5 "2013-09-05T22:28:11Z")
As if all the violent tornadoes they have there weren’t enough.
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### Author:  [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2013, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-city-cricket-invasion/668111/6 "2013-09-05T22:53:51Z")
It gets worse. It won’t be long before they start dying off, leaving drifts of rotting cricket corpses. The smell is not what you’d call pleasant.
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### Author:  [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)
#### Post date: [September 6, 2013, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-city-cricket-invasion/668111/7 "2013-09-06T02:36:25Z")
One article I read says they smell rather like rotting flesh, plus crickets happen to not be above cannibalism if they find some dead crickets. So either way, killing crickets just contributes to your problem - more stench faster plus you’ve provided food for the crickets who are looking to breed and lay many eggs for next year.
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### Author:  [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)
#### Post date: [September 6, 2013, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-city-cricket-invasion/668111/8 "2013-09-06T02:54:57Z")
> [@](#):
>
> ‘These outbreaks seem to occur after periods of prolonged dry weather in spring and early summer followed by rainfall in July and August,’ said Rick Grantham, director of the Plant Disease and Insect Diagnostic Lab in Oklahoma State University. ‘ **Extensive soil cracking may be an important factor.’**
Bolding mine.
It’s been dry here too. There’s a small patch of yard that had been re-seeded. The ground started to crack in that patch. When we watered to try to save the new grass, the crickets started coming out. The dog likes to eat them, so we stopped watering. Let 'em stay down there, do whatever they’re doing. I hate crickets.
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### Author:  [@Sudden\_Kestrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sudden_Kestrel)
#### Post date: [September 6, 2013, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-city-cricket-invasion/668111/9 "2013-09-06T02:59:48Z")
I encountered a grasshopper infestation during a summer like this at a South Dakota rest stop once. I think it was quite a bit worse than that cricket invasion. It was impossible to take a step without crushing piles of grasshoppers. They had gotten into the power system somewhere and there were no lights in the restrooms, so my mother and I had to use flashlights and walk (_crunch, crunch, crunch_) through the critters into the stalls, sweep them off the toilets with tissue, and then perch precariously among the scrabbling, skittering horde whilst we did our business.
It will tell you much about traveling with my mother to hear that was one of my favorite memories from that trip.
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### Author:  [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)
#### Post date: [September 6, 2013, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-city-cricket-invasion/668111/10 "2013-09-06T04:48:46Z")
Here on the NW side of OKC (Village), I have hardly seen any. Downtown and south to Norman and beyond, there are hordes of them. Are the Sooners hoarding them?
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### Author:  [@Darth\_Sensitive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Sensitive)
#### Post date: [September 6, 2013, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-city-cricket-invasion/668111/11 "2013-09-06T04:53:13Z")
> [@NoClueBoy](#):
>
> Here on the NW side of OKC (Village), I have hardly seen any. Downtown and south to Norman and beyond, there are hordes of them. Are the Sooners hoarding them?
Haven’t seen many up past Lake Hefner or into Edmond.
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### Author:  [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)
#### Post date: [September 6, 2013, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-city-cricket-invasion/668111/12 "2013-09-06T04:58:54Z")
I wonder what is the difference? First I knew of it was when i saw it on national news.
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### Author:  [@Ionizer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ionizer)
#### Post date: [September 6, 2013, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-city-cricket-invasion/668111/13 "2013-09-06T15:53:52Z")
I have seen a LOT of 'em around Chickasha area (and heard about same in other nearby towns, too) last couple of days, fwiw, and the Toll Plaza on Bailey Turnpike (~10 minutes north of Chickasha) seemed almost paved with crushed ones the day before yesterday.
I was up by Lake Hefner two days ago and was really surprised at lack of any sign of what was so evident just to the south. Weird, for sure.