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This thing is NASTY!
Please help me Identify this thing! I found it inside my house on the floor. Im thinking that it might have come in with a bunch of fireworks I had recently purchased! I appreciate your time and your help! Thanks!
Tyson Johnson
Salt Lake City, UT

Hi Tyson,
We are compelled to come to the defense of your Potato Bug or Jerusalem Cricket, and inform readers that they are not nasty. They are shy nocturnal underground dwellers that often appear inside homes and garages after a rain. They are normally one of our most common identification requests from the Western states, especially California. Our last posting was in January and we suspect the record low rainfall in California last year is responsible for low sightings recently.  Potato Bugs are also known as Ninos de la Tierra or Children of the Earth in Spanish and they are in the family Stenopelmatidae.  Potato Bugs do have strong mandibles and will bite, but they are not poisonous and in most cases will not even break the skin.

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3. Potato Bug in Oklahoma (September 22, 2009)
4. Suicidal Potato Bugs (October 5, 2009)
5. Potato Bug (November 7, 2009)