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Mole Cricket from The Netherlands

Posted by April 23rd, 2007 at 12:00 am

Categories

Crickets, Camel Crickets and Mole Crickets

Potato bug? not sure, please help?
Dear Bugman,
We’ve found this bug in our garden, it was walking across the grass in full daylight (good thing, I wouldn’t want to come across it at night! I’ve browsed your website and it sort of looks like a potato bug, but this one has two antenna’s at the end, not just one.
It’s about 8 cm long. Can you help please? And could you, if not a potato bug, tell us whether they are harmless to children or not? Thank you!
ps: we found it in Leiden, The Netherlands (Europe) and I’m not sure as to whether potato bugs are native here, I sure never seen them before!
Kind regards,
Anne-Karina van Wilgenburg

Hi Anne-Karina,
This is actually a Mole Cricket. We get images of Mole Crickets from all over the world, including many from the troops in the Middle East. Mole Crickets are subterranean, though many species can fly. They eat roots. They have strong jaws, and might bite, but the bite contains no poison and is more of a pinch than anything else.

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