In article ,
(Always Curious) wrote:

While digging in my yard today, I found a large insect. Can anyone
help me figure out what it is? I've been surfing Google trying to
find an ID guide, but have come up empty so far.

I took some digital photos of it and posted them he

http://www.geocities.com/yowza217/BugPage.html

It's large - about two inches as you can see in the photo that has my
finger to show the comparative size. Appears to be segmented, and has
no wings. Brown all over the belly side, brown head and middle and
legs but black striped bottom on the backside. Large pincers on the
mouth.

I don't know whether this is a pest or a beneficial insect, and this
is the second one I've seen. First was dead under the car in the
driveway.

Help appreciated.

I wouldn't worry about seeing only one or two jerusalem crickets aka
"potato bugs" in the garden (there are also beetles called potato-bug, &
kids sometimes call rollypolly type of wood louse a potato-bug because of
its shape when not rolled). They're common all along the west coast but
because subterranean & nocturnal, only rarely encountered, & gardens
aren't their first choice of habitat. They're no more harmful to a garden
than are smaller less strange looking sorts of crickets -- meaning any
cricket MIGHT damage a garden if their population explodes (usually do to
inorganic & unbalanced gardening practices) but crickets generally aren't
significant garden chompers.

They don't bite unless you try awfully hard to get bitten by it & they
make good terrarium pets. In an ant-farm sort of set-up, a mixture of loam
with moistened leaf-mold & sphagnum makes a good medium for them to burrow
in. They can be fed little pieces of potato, white-worms, decomposing
leaves, wood louses, & lettuce. They breed easily, but any full grown
female is likely already with eggs, & will dig a nest at an end of a
tunnel to lay the eggs in. The newly hatched hatchlings make good tropical
fish food; half-grown & adult they are excellent for pet frogs &
salamanders.

Some people regard the jerusalem cricket as a human delicacy superior
(because of its size) to the common brown cricket, & even a replacement
for cocktail baby shrimp. Being vegetarian myself, it has been a couple
decades since I tried any insects or crustaceans either one.

-paghat

--
"Flowers are commonly badly designed, inartistic in
color, & ill-smelling." -Ambrose Bierce
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