Red Mormon Cricket – Shieldback Kadydid - Owyhee Canyonlands Wilderness Idaho Horizontal Stock Photography

On the road at the Jack`s Creek entrance to Owyhee Canyonlands Wilderness, mormon crickets on the roads and in the fields. Mormon cricket Anabrus simplex is a large insect living throughout western North America in range lands dominated by sagebrush. The Mormon cricket is actually a shieldbacked katydid, not a cricket. Although flightless, the Mormon cricket is capable of traveling up to two kilometers a day in its swarming phase. Tribe platycleidini, genus anabrus, species simplex.