A Potato Bug’s Menu – Jerusalem crickets and Colorado potato beetles are called potato bugs because of their diets. Jerusalem crickets can sometimes be found in potato fields eating the roots and tubers of potato crops. While the crickets have occasionally damaged commercial potato fields, they are not considered serious pests.
What is the real name of a potato bug?
Armadillidium vulgare, the common pill-bug, potato bug, common pill woodlouse, roly-poly, slater, doodle bug, or carpenter, is a widespread European species of woodlouse.
Are potato bugs a bug?
What are Potato Bugs? – For some reason, there’s been a lot of hullaballoo about the potato bug lately. What is the potato bug and what is all the hullaballoo about? I decided to do some research to answer these two questions. Right off the bat I learned that there are three bugs – the roly-poly bug, the Colorado beetle, and the Jerusalem cricket – that are all referred to as potato bugs. The roly-poly bug is the only one that inhabits our Hawaiian islands. The roly-poly bug – also known as a potato bug, a pill bug, and a sow bug – is that little gray bug that I played with as a child. The roly-poly doesn’t bite or sting, it has an armor-like shell around its body, and it’s fun to play with because it rolls up into a ball when disturbed. The Colorado beetle – also known as a potato bug, a ten-striped spearman, and a Colorado potato beetle – generally has a black and yellow-striped body with an orange-colored head. The Colorado beetle is a serious pest to potato, tomato, eggplant, and pepper crops, and has yet to be identified in the state of Hawaii. Now enter the Jerusalem cricket. The Jerusalem cricket – also known as the potato bug, earth baby, skull head, and old bald headed man – may take home the prize for the most “hullaballoo” just with its looks. The Jerusalem cricket is not a cricket, it did not come from Jerusalem, could care less about potatoes, and it really isn’t a bug.
Is a potato bug a Jerusalem cricket?
Jerusalem crickets (also commonly called “potato bugs”) is a North American insect that looks a lot like a large bulbous cricket. Jerusalem crickets can be identified by their 6 legs, large jaws on a smooth face, and a round body with black and tan/orange striped coloration on its abdomen.
What is a potato bugs purpose?
This burrowing aerates the soil and allows for it to be more porous. They also eat smaller insects that can be harmful to your plants. In a way, the potato bug provides pest control for you and your garden.
What eats potato bugs?
By: Bonnie L. Grant, Certified Urban Agriculturist 
Potato beetles are pests of plants in the nightshade family. Potatoes are one plant they devour, but the beetles also eat tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers, Both the adults and the larvae eat the leaves of these plants. Getting rid of potato beetles is a priority for the vegetable gardener due to the range of plants the pest can infest.
What does a child of the Earth eat?
I’ve been getting phone calls and e-mails recently reminding me this is the time of the year when unsuspecting humans meet up with our colorful – I’ve been getting phone calls and e-mails recently reminding me this is the time of the year when unsuspecting humans meet up with our colorful and common—but sometimes alarming—Jerusalem Cricket.
Of all the insects that live in, under, over and on Central Oregon, none can catch a person’s eye and generate more fear, questions, admiration, revulsion and other human emotions like that of Stenopelmatus fuscus, the Jerusalem Cricket, AKA: · Earth baby · cara de niño (Spanish for “child’s face”) · wó see ts’inii (Navajo for “skull insect”) · old bald-headed man · potato bugs · skull bug · What in the $#%# is that!? They are large (total body length of up to three-inches in length) colorful, flightless insects native to the western United States, and south into Mexico.
They come equipped with six large, brightly colored legs, black-and-white striped abdomen, reddish-orange thorax and a reddish head that looks like a human skull. Early entomologists who were eagerly naming insects wondered where to put them in the zoological order of things.
Many of these early bug people thought they looked like king crickets of Australia and the weta of New Zealand, so the name “cricket” stuck. Despite their name(s), however, Jerusalem crickets (Why “Jerusalem?” I haven’t the foggiest.) are neither true crickets nor true bugs and, contrary to one of their names, they do not eat potatoes – whether growing, deep-fried, rotten or frozen.
How To Stop The Potato Beetle
Incidentally, the New Zealand Maori name for the Giant Weta is “weta punga,” a term that is sometimes rendered in English as “god of ugly things.” Now, if you can figure out how and why insects normally endemic to Australia are enjoying a happy home here in this part of the North American continent, or visa-versa, you are a better man than I, Gunga Din.
Which opens the “what came first, the chicken or the egg?” business. Where did the first of the Stenopelmatus show up in the fossil record, here or there? The scientific literature says they are “active only at night.” (It’s dangerous to say “only,” as I have seen them out in broad daylight on several occasions).
They use their strong mandibles to feed primarily on dead organic material but also eat other insects, dead or alive. Their highly adaptable feet are used for burrowing beneath the soil to feed on decaying roots, plants and dead grasshoppers or gophers someone killed.
Similar to true crickets, each species of Jerusalem cricket produces a different song during mating, but this “song” takes the form of a characteristic drumming in which the insect beats its abdomen against the ground. (This behavior could be similar to that of a frustrated Homo sapian male who beats his fists on the ground, “Not tonight, dear, I have a headache.”) Jerusalem crickets apparently rely exclusively on substrate vibrations, which are felt rather than heard.
I received a phone call just the other day from a woman near Sisters who was all excited about a “giant ant” she found under her flagstone walk.
How big is the biggest potato bug in the world?
What is Jerusalem Cricket (Potato Bug)? – Jerusalem crickets ( Stenopelmatus fuscus ) are large insects that look like a cross between a large ant and a fat wasp. Their ant-like appearance can look frightening to many people due to their large bulging head, small eyes, and long antennas.
- One of the off-putting things about the appearance of these insect bugs is their large brown head that has a humanoid appearance.
- Their body has shiny orange and black bands with 3 large legs on either side.
- Potato bugs are wingless creatures and get around on their 6 spider-like legs.
- Their legs help them dig into the ground where they spend much of their life.
Unlike other crickets, Jerusalem crickets don’t jump. Jerusalem crickets can grow up to 2.5 inches (6 cm). This means that these unsightly-looking cricket bugs can be nearly as long as the width of your hand. In fact, due to their unsightliness and size, people describe potato bugs as the monsters of the insect world.
- Apart from giving you a nasty bite, Jerusalem bugs also give off a foul stench when they are threatened.
- The way a potato bug looks is the reason it has adopted names like “skull insect,” “shiny bug,” “red-skull bug,” “dark Jerusalem crickets,” and “skunk bugs.” Even though Jerusalem crickets or Jerusalem beetles are called potato bugs, they shouldn’t be confused with the Colorado beetle or Colorado potato beetle.
In fact, no one really knows where the name of this unpleasant-looking creature came from. One researcher theorized that a scientist called the beetle a Jerusalem cricket because it resembled the Jerusalem Cross. The name “potato bugs” could come from the fact that they are commonly found in potato fields. 
Jerusalem cricket (potato bug) pictures
Are sand puppies poisonous?
After reading your letter, we believe Sand Puppies might be Solpugids, also known as Sun Spiders or Wind Scorpions. They are not poisonous, but do have powerful jaws we would not want to be bitten by.
What do Mexicans call the potato bug?
De La Tierra’s Steve Tapia. Known as a ‘Child of the Earth’ or ‘El Niño de la Tierra’ in Spanish, this insect has also been called the Jerusalem cricket, and ‘ the old bald man ‘ (Who-tzi-Neh) by many American Indian tribes, and the ‘potato bug.’ There are several myths about this insect.