Hordes of hungry grasshoppers blanket Las Vegas in bugs. ‘Everybody was going crazy’
Stunned Las Vegas residents call it the “great grasshopper invasion of 2019,” CBS News reports.
Hordes of hungry grasshoppers, so vast they even show up on Doppler weather radar as clouds, are swarming the Nevada gambling mecca, KTNV reported.
“It was crazy,” said tourist Diana Rodriquez, KLAS reported. “We didn’t even want to walk through there. Everybody was going crazy.”
Migratory swarms of grasshoppers are stopping over in Las Vegas following an unseasonably wet winter and spring, said Jeff Knight, state entomologist for the Nevada Agriculture Department, The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
“This has happened five or six times over the last 30-years,” he said, predicting the invasion will last another two to three weeks, KSNV reported. “Sometimes it’s heavier than others, but always usually associated with that weather pattern.”
In the meantime, the bugs are so thick the National Weather Service says they’re showing up as rain on weather radar. A post on Twitter by the agency shows the insects on radar.
“Last night, for example, it was showing some pretty high radar returns or echoes, and it was actually labeling them as large drops, raindrops,” said NWS meteorologist Alex Boothe, The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. “Based on there not being many clouds around, you can pretty much safely assume that it was probably biological.”
Other than freaking out visitors and faking out radar returns, the invading insects, known as pallid-winged grasshoppers, are unlikely to cause any permanent damage, experts say.
“They don’t carry any diseases,” Knight said, The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. “They don’t bite. They’re not even one of the species that we consider a problem. They probably won’t cause much damage in a yard.”
Knight suggested that residents bugged by the bugs replace outdoor lights with amber or UV bulbs, which don’t attract grasshoppers, KLAS reported. But Las Vegas exterminators report plenty of calls about the insect invasion.
“They’re going to look for shade,” said exterminator Grady Jones, according to the station. “Of course everything in Vegas, including us, is looking for shade, so that’s why you’ll see them in areas like this. I’ve got one flying right into me as we’re talking.”
This story was originally published July 28, 2019 at 10:47 AM with the headline "Hordes of hungry grasshoppers blanket Las Vegas in bugs. ‘Everybody was going crazy’."