Yesterday I
ran into the biggest, most award-winningly massive cricket I've seen in my life.
And, of course, I did not
have my camera.
But he was
trudging… so I could head back to my house and catch him on the move with my
camera if I ran, right?
Wrong.
The armored
ground cricket, acanthoplus discoidalis,
is common in Namibia…
(Or so they
tell me)..
In the local
language, they are called kuta kuta.
According to
local lore, if you see one, you will soon be full.
I took this
to mean sated or satisfied, but I have been assured that they (my colleagues)
literally mean overstuffed from a big meal.
Perhaps,
though, they’re thinking the kuta kuta, itself,
will be full soon…
They’re cannibalistic.
From the
archives…
Check out this
Slate article.
Or this one
from BBC.
Also, two
inches, my foot.
This bugger
was over 3 inches in length and fat as hell..
Maybe that’s
why he was sauntering off on his own…
He’d just eaten
his compatriots.
So, anyway,
I’m chugging back to where I spotted the sucker and am cursing myself for not
just following it to wherever it was heading to get out of the rain, and then
getting the camera…
And it’s
vanished.
It has no
wings.
I’m in a
relatively open field.
And it’s
gone.
Feeling
(more than) a little bereft, I hoist my camera, determined to scout it out.
No luck…
Except for spotting
possibly the strangest grasshopper(?) I have ever seen.
This little
guy is called efingwe in Rukwangali.
No idea about its English moniker, nor scientific name..
According to
my friends, coming across this pretty little insect means something dire will happen to me in short order – most likely death.
At least I’ll
die with a full stomach?