Pete, the Camel Cricket and my Partner in Crime!
I discovered an unusual insect in my basement when I went down to get my clothes from the drier. This weird little creature looked like a spider but jumped like a cricket. And when it jumped so high right at me, I screamed. My husband called down the steps, wondering if I’d fallen on the slightly slippery floor. You see, the town I live in has a high-water table, a polite way of saying my basement floods whenever the downpours get vicious. The water bubbles up from tiny holes in the floor and I get out the Wet Vac or the bright yellow, gliding mop bucket with a wringer attached. Armed thusly, I’m ready for battle against any flood.
This crazy jumping spider fascinated me. Apparently, he had family living in my basement, I’d never seen him or his kin upstairs. He wasn’t violent and didn’t bite. He was just very, very bizarre looking.
I quickly followed Google crumbs to discover my basement lurker was a fairly unknown species — a camel cricket. Or a cave cricket, spider cricket, jumping spider, whatever you want to call them. Entomologists have difficulty classifying them because this nocturnal denizen resides in the subfamily Rhaphidophoridae, which has over 1100 species! They eat other insects, live about a year and because they can’t see very well (living in the dark will do that to you) they jump at anything when they’re scared…
