Mole Cricket
Burrowing lawn pests that tunnel through turf roots, leaving spongy, dying grass.
Mole Cricket (Neoscapteriscus) is a high-concern pest in Florida homes and yards. Lawn & ornamental service in Florida's Treasure & Space Coast is handled by Rhino Pest Management, a local, licensed (#JB242881) and insured company rated 5.0★ across 16 Google reviews. Ask for a free estimate at (772) 589-6842.
Photo: no rights reserved (CC0) · iNaturalist
About 3–5 cm long, light brown with velvety skin and enlarged, shovel-like front legs designed for burrowing. Resemble a cross between a cricket and a mole. Adults can fly.
Sandy Florida soils under Bermuda, Bahia and St. Augustine turf. They're most active in spring when adults fly and lay eggs, and damage peaks in summer as nymphs grow.
- Spongy, raised tunnels in the lawn soil surface
- Irregular brown dying patches in Bermuda, Bahia or St. Augustine grass
- Turf that pulls up easily because roots have been severed
- Mole crickets on the surface after heavy rain or irrigation at night
Mole crickets are one of Florida's most damaging turf pests — their burrowing severs grass roots, causes soil upheaval and creates conditions for secondary drought stress and weed invasion.
Should I call today?
Yes, get it looked at promptly. Mole Cricket causes damage or health problems that compound while you wait, and the cost of that damage is the part that actually gets expensive — not the treatment. An inspection is free, so there's no reason to guess.
Rhino's lawn & ornamental program targets mole crickets with granular and liquid treatments timed to nymph emergence in early summer, when they're smallest and easiest to kill.
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Scientific source
For the biology behind this page, the University of Florida's IFAS Extension publishes a detailed Featured Creatures profile of this species — free to read, and written by entomologists in this state:
Shortwinged Mole Cricket, Neoscapteriscus abbreviatus (Scudder); Southern Mole Cricket, Neoscapteriscus borellii (Giglio-Tos); and Tawny Mole Cricket, Neoscapteriscus vicinus (Scudder) — UF/IFAS Extension