This is the camel cricket. You hate it, don't you? You should. Let's start with the fact that it's—how to put this nicely?—repulsive. Add the fact that it's big, by bug standards at least, measuring up to two inches (5 cm) long; that it resembles a spider more than a cricket; and that it will eat nearly anything—including other camel crickets, which is just plain bad form.

Now to all that, add the additional fact that camel crickets are here. And by "here," we mean everywhere. An Asian species originally, it has now turned up in more than 90% of cricket sightings across the U.S. It wasn't as if we needed the import, thank you very much. The North American continent already had its own species of camel cricket. But the Asian variety arrived and appears to be crowding out the native species. There are, at current estimates, more than twice as many camel crickets of all species in America as there are actual Americans, with the bugs outnumbering us 700 million to 314 million.

In fairness, camel crickets don't bite or pose any other particular threat to people. And since they're scavengers, they also help keep ecosystems in balance. So really, we should be glad to have them--even welcome them, right? Nah. Sorry science, this time we're going with our guts: camel cricket, here's your tiny hat. Please go home.