Nevada is crawling with swarms of smelly 'Mormon crickets'

Hordes of Mormon crickets—technically a type of shield-back katydid and not a cricket at all—have been migrating through Elko, Nevada and other areas of the West in recent weeks, creating a scene like something from a scary movie. These flightless, thumb-sized, omnivorous cannibals have been covering sidewalks, eating up vegetation and each other. They don’t bite, but they do literally stink. If you’re driving on a smaller road and your window is down, says Greg Sword, an entomologist at Texas A&M University,“it sounds like you're driving over bubble wrap.” Mormon...