Brutality like no other! – Issue #90

Hello Explorer,
this past while I’ve been keeping three new pets in the house, and the two most prominent thoughts that goes through my head often are “They are EPIC” and “I’m really, REALLY glad they don’t get any bigger!”.
My new pets are Brown Armoured Bush Crickets (Acanthoplus armativentris)! In Afrikaans they are called “Koringkrieke”.
Armoured Bush Crickets are omnivores and will consume grasses, seeds, and broadleaved plants. Their diet might include the crops like maize, sorghum, millet, sunflower, paprika and any other crops that are grown in arid and semi-arid areas in the country. Although they aren’t pests on these crops specifically, they are sporadic and become a pest of major importance during outbreak years.
Armoured Bush Crickets, however, have insatiable appetites and tare thus extreme omnivores, meaning if it is edible, they will eat it! They will consume leaves, fruit, carrion, insects, and even small vertebrates they can overpower. One of their food sources in the Kalahari are the chicks of Red Billed Queleas. The Armoured Bush Cricket will climb up the tree and into the nest, where it will eat the chicks inside the nest.
Being a large, flightless, fat filled, and nutritious bug puts them on the menu for anything that is willing to consume insects. These crickets, however, have one of the most insane self-defence mechanisms against potential predators. They will squirt their toxic haemolymph (insect blood) from its leg joints into the eyes of the predator. Their haemolymph is green, bitter, and toxic, which is more than enough to repel any potential predators from catching and consuming the Cricket.
This self defence mechanism, however, comes with great risk. The smell of the blood attracts all the other armoured bush crickets in the area, and they will start consuming their friend alive in an act of cannibalism! For them, it is just another source of food!
Their cannibalistic nature does lead to one of the strangest occurrences on the Roads in the drier parts of South Africa. If one of them crosses the road and gets driven over, the smell of its blood will attract a few more armoured bush crickets that will come and feast on the flattened one. The next vehicle to pass by will drive over the feasting ones as well. Therefore increasing the amount of haemolymph on the road, which leads to more armoured Bush Crickets coming for the feast they smell. As this process repeats itself over and over, it leads to massive streaks of Armoured bush cricket guts on the road!
I will be feeding my Armoured Bush Crickets a lot of different foods to see if I can find something they will not consume. At this stage I can say that they will eat beetroot, carrot, sweet potato, apples, banana, tomato, oranges, limes, grapefruit, lettuce, cucumber, and even each other (I had two in one enclosure, which led to the larger one eating its smaller roommate 0.o).
Have you ever seen an Armoured Bush Cricket? Did you know about their crazy appetites? What other animals have you came across that were more than meets the eye when you learned more about it?

If you would like to send me a message with your answers, feel free to do so on Instagram @abugmanslife or via email to [email protected].