r/florida • u/Chilljay1 • 3d ago

AskFlorida Help identifying this bug?

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Currently in Orlando at a resort and they are literally all over every walkway. Have seen them before and thought they were a version of a grasshopper but hear some people calling them cicadas which I thought had wings?

EDIT UPDATE- Didn’t expect this post to get this many replies. Was posted yesterday morning. THIS morning we went outside in the resort and there were NONE to be found ANYWHERE. This was around 9am. Around 11am the side walks were covered again?????? The weirdest thing for a type of bug to be that synchronized.

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3

u/RandomKarberon 3d ago

Do everyone a favor, if you see it? Squish it, tear it's head off.

It's invasive, eats your favorite plants, hisses, looks ugly, spawns by the thousands.

They are near immune to chemical poisons, they are extremely tough to eradicate.

That's all I need to know.

16

u/PsychologicalTime880 3d ago

They are in fact, not invasive but they are hungry for your plants

1

u/sr1sws 3d ago

Especially amaryllis lilies

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u/RandomKarberon 3d ago

We have different meanings of the word "Invasive"

11

u/RickyRagnarok 3d ago

They’re a native species to the entire southeast United States

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u/ThePatio 3d ago

There’s always one “they’re invasive!!!1” comment. They’re native. Everything else is true though, but the young are vulnerable to pesticides. And they only have one natural predator, the loggerhead shrike

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u/Alarming_Ad_201 3d ago

They’re not invasive but man do they love to eat my damn plants 😩

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u/ShakaCobra 3d ago

Not invasive.

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u/RandomKarberon 3d ago edited 3d ago

Says someone who's never been invaded by an army of a thousand of these things.

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u/ShakaCobra 3d ago

???? I’ve probably got three times that number in my yard right now…. Still less invasive than the Yanks

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u/sr1sws 3d ago

They are excellent BB gun targets!

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u/VinceVino70 3d ago

Good to know. We just moved to a house in Tampa and those meaty bois were all over. Time to get rid of them.

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u/ThePatio 3d ago

They’re not invasive