NY Times: Vegas Grasshopper Infestation Might Last Weeks

Patience, young grasshopper: The insect infestation invading the Las Vegas strip might last weeks, according to experts, The New York Times reported.

"You can get rid of them, but in 24 or 48 hours they're just going to be back," Nevada Department of Agriculture entomologist Jeff Knight told the Times, advising against pesticides to control a swarm of grasshoppers who have caused Internet hysteria.

It has been an usually wet year in Las Vegas – already surpassing its annual rainfall average by four inches, per Knight – and grasshoppers are drawn to the green plants and bright lights of the Las Vegas strip in the middle of wide swaths of dry desert in the middle of summer.

"Their food source is getting pretty grim," University of Wyoming professor Jeff Lockwood told the Times. "By golly, the city of Las Vegas is just filled with patches of green. What might be the magnet is in fact the green plants, as much as the lights at night."

Videos of the swarms have been posted to social media.

"I think most locals are taking it in stride because this occurs every few years," Las Vegas comic Nancy Ryan told the Times. "Since there's more than usual, I think the dramatic videos are causing a bit of hysteria."

Regardless of the "hysteria," Nevada's Knight is downplaying the reports of the grasshoppers swarming the lights of the Las Vegas strip, saying they are more a nuisance than an  "outbreak."

"They don't bite," Knight told the Times. "They don't sting. People don't like them. That's understandable.

". . . It's really hard to quantify how many. It's kind of a unique thing that happens. We have outbreaks of insects periodically. I guess you'd call it an outbreak."

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