Subject: Bu Jiminy, it’s a huge cricket!
Geographic location of the bug: Borneo
Date: 09/29/2017
Time: 06:33 PM EDT
Dear Bug-dudes, on the road up to Mt. Kinabalu I foolishly picked this monster up to get a size comparison photo – it chomped the end of my bird-flipping finger and drew ridiculous amounts of blood … for a cricket!! I guess it’s about 3 1/2″ long. A fantastic beast indeed, as are so many on this amazing island. I’m very surprised that my googling has not revealed the animals true identity – help would be appreciated.
Cheers
How you want your letter signed: Paul Prior
Dear Paul,
This looks to us like a close relative of North American Potato Bug, or a King Cricket from Australia or Parktown Prawn from South Africa. We located an image on ShutterStock, but alas, it is only identified as a “giant cricket in Sabah, Borneo.” We hope to have a better identification for you soon. We will attempt to contact Piotr Naskrecki.
Piotr Naskrecki provides an identification
Hi Daniel,
This looks like Sia, possibly S. incisa, a distant relative of North American Jerusalem crickets.
Cheers,
Piotr Naskrecki, Ph. D.
Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University
Ed. Note: We found a matching image on Wikiwand.
