Child of the Earth: The Jerusalem Cricket

Happy Halloween, gardeners of the Pacific Southwest! You may get trick-or-treated by one of these scary but harmless insects when turning over loamy soil, especially if it has decaying plant material or tubers in it. That's how my son captured this 2-inch long adult specimen yesterday.

The Jerusalem Cricket (Stenopelmatus fuscus) is native to California and Mexico, not the Holy Land. Mexicans call it "Niño de la Tierra", or "Child of the Earth". The Hopi and Navajo called it "Red Skull Insect", which led the Franciscans to mistakenly equate to "Skull Hill", where Jesus was crucified. Farmers call it "Potato bug" for its habit of gnawing on tubers below the soil.

This large nocturnal insect minds its own business burrowing underground and eating smaller insects and cleaning up detritus. It is wingless, voiceless, and earless, making it kind of the Helen Keller of the entymological world. It does have rhythm, though, and thumps the earth with its abdomen, a vibration others of its kind register with their feet. It may scrape its abdomen with its hindlegs to warn its enemies or give off a foul odor, but its bite-- while painful-- lacks venom.

source: https://www.hakes.com/Auction/ItemDetail/76549/HAMILTONS-INVADERS-HORRIBLE-HAMILTON-SPRING-MOTOR-INSECT-TOY

When I was a child, my grandmother Hamilton had one of the gross, stringpulled action toys above, the "Horrible Hamilton". Compare it to the Child of the Earth:

The "Hamilton's Invaders" were a mid-60s line of toys based on those giant bug horror films. I would not be surprised if Horrible Hamilton was inspired by the hideous Jerusalem Cricket. What a family mascot!

Poor thing, it wound up being fed to the chickens. As my son commented in #socalsteemit chat last night,

"It didn't know it was the one to be scared. (and eaten by terror birds)."

Both a trick, and a treat, depending on whose vantage we observe.

May all beings dwell in love, kindness, peace and joy. Even or especially the ones we think of as "horrible", for they need love to illuminate their lives and actions most of all.

Love,cat
@creationofcare

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