Jerusalem Crickets in Porterville

Few Central Valley pests look as alarming as the Jerusalem cricket, the big-headed potato bug that turns up in Porterville gardens and garages. Here is what it actually is, whether it is dangerous, and why it shows up.

What a Jerusalem cricket is

The Jerusalem cricket, called a potato bug locally, is a large, wingless, heavy-bodied insect with an oversized round head, a shiny amber-and-brown banded body, and strong legs for digging. Despite the look, it is native to the Western United States and common in the San Joaquin Valley, and it spends most of its life underground in the soil, feeding on roots, tubers, and decaying plant material. People usually meet one when digging in the garden, turning compost, or finding one that has wandered into a garage or a window well at night.

They are not venomous and they do not carry disease, but they can deliver a hard, painful bite with those strong jaws if picked up or pressed, and they can make a hissing or scratching sound. They are more startling than dangerous, and a single potato bug in the yard is normal in this part of the valley.

Why they turn up around homes

Jerusalem crickets live in moist, workable soil, so an irrigated Porterville yard, garden bed, compost pile, or lawn is good habitat. They come to the surface at night, especially when the soil is watered and during their mating season, and they can wander toward light and into a garage, a window well, or a low doorway. Finding one indoors almost always means it came in from the yard, not that there is an infestation inside.

Heavy watering, thick mulch, buried wood and debris, and compost against the house all raise the odds of potato bugs at the surface. They are a soil-and-moisture pest, so the conditions that produce them are the same ones that produce a lush valley yard.

What to do about them

For the occasional potato bug, no treatment is needed, just relocate it with a container rather than handling it, given the bite. When they turn up often around a home, the useful steps are cultural: reduce excess watering where you can, keep mulch and compost pulled back from the foundation, remove buried wood and debris from beds, and seal the low gaps, garage door sweep, doors, and vents, they use to wander inside.

If potato bugs are a persistent nuisance alongside other soil and perimeter pests, earwigs, crickets, ants, an experienced local exterminator can treat the perimeter and harborage and seal the entry points as part of general pest control, rather than chasing the potato bugs alone. They are usually a sign of moist, insect-friendly conditions more than a problem in themselves.

References

• UC IPM Program, California insects
• UC ANR, San Joaquin Valley resources

Have this problem now? Call 559-219-0184 and describe it.