Small holes and raised tunnels appearing in your lawn are often the work of mole crickets, insects that spend most of their lives burrowing just below the soil surface. These holes are typically pencil-width openings surrounded by small mounds of loose dirt, and they’re most visible in well-watered lawns, golf courses, and freshly seeded turf. If you’re seeing them alongside brown patches of dying grass, mole crickets are the likely culprit.
What Mole Cricket Holes Look Like
Mole cricket burrows show up in a few distinct ways. The most obvious sign is small mounds of soil pushed above the turf surface, with a visible opening at the center. You’ll also notice raised trails running just under the grass, where the insects have tunneled along near the surface. The soil in these areas feels spongy when you walk on it, and the ground may crack or lift slightly along the tunnel path.
Males dig specially shaped burrows that amplify their mating calls, creating small chambers with openings to the surface. Females dig deeper, going several inches down to lay clusters of about 35 eggs in early summer. During dry periods, mole crickets retreat even deeper into the soil, so the surface evidence can come and go with weather and watering patterns.
How to Tell Them Apart From Other Lawn Holes
Not every hole in your yard belongs to a cricket. Earthworm castings are small, coiled piles of soil without a clean tunnel opening. Cicada killer wasps create larger, more defined holes (roughly the diameter of a nickel or quarter) with a fan-shaped mound of excavated dirt on one side. Rodent holes are bigger still, usually an inch or more across, often near foundations or garden beds.
Mole cricket holes are distinct because they come with those raised, irregular tunnels radiating outward. The combination of surface tunneling, small soil mounds, and brown patches of dead grass is the giveaway. If you’re only seeing holes without the tunneling trails, something else is probably responsible.
The Damage They Cause
Mole crickets do two things that kill grass. As they tunnel near the surface, they sever roots and push the soil upward, physically separating grass plants from the ground. They also feed directly on roots and shoots, with the tawny mole cricket being the most destructive species since it feeds almost exclusively on turfgrass. The southern mole cricket, by contrast, mostly eats other small organisms in the soil and rarely damages turf directly.
Any turfgrass species can be affected, but bahiagrass and bermudagrass are particular favorites. The damage shows up as ugly brown patches of dying or dead grass that typically get colonized by weeds. It’s worst from late August through October, when mole crickets reach full size and their tunneling becomes more aggressive. In spring, you might notice poor turf growth and loosened soil in areas that were damaged the previous fall.
Mole cricket damage is most common in sandy coastal soils and in areas that stay consistently moist. Well-watered lawns, irrigated turf, and low-lying areas near streams or ponds are prime habitat. The northern mole cricket prefers damp margins along waterways, while the prairie mole cricket favors drier grassland, though neither causes significant lawn damage.
Confirming Mole Crickets With a Soap Flush
Before treating your lawn, it’s worth confirming what you’re dealing with. The soapy water flush test is a simple way to force mole crickets to the surface where you can see them. Mix 1 to 2 tablespoons of lemon-scented liquid dish soap into 1 to 2 gallons of water, then slowly pour it over about one square yard of turf. Watch for 5 to 10 minutes. Mole crickets, both nymphs and adults, will crawl to the surface to escape the irritating solution.
Place your flush in healthy grass bordering the damaged area rather than in the dead patches themselves. The insects are less likely to be found where the turf is already heavily damaged because they’ve moved on to areas with living roots to feed on. You may need to repeat the test in several spots to get a clear picture of population density.
How to Get Rid of Mole Crickets
Timing is everything. The most effective window for control is when mole crickets are young nymphs, typically in late spring and early summer after eggs hatch. Small nymphs are far more vulnerable than the large adults tunneling through your yard in fall. By late August, when the damage looks worst, adults are harder to kill and have already done most of their damage for the season.
For a long-term biological approach, parasitic nematodes offer impressive results. These microscopic worms, applied to the soil surface, burrow down at least 4 inches within five days to find and infect mole crickets. In field trials at the University of Florida, initial infection rates reached up to 40 percent of the mole cricket population. More importantly, the nematodes establish and persist in the soil. Plots monitored over five years showed about 10 percent of mole crickets remained infected on an ongoing basis, which was enough to reduce nymph populations by roughly 85 percent after one year and 95 percent or more in subsequent years. These nematodes have been commercially available in Florida since 1993 for use on golf courses and pastures.
Nematodes work best in warm, moist soil. They’re less effective in cool temperatures and need the soil to stay damp for several days after application. Think of them as a slow-building, self-sustaining solution rather than an overnight fix.
Chemical insecticides are most effective when applied during the nymph stage in early to mid-summer, targeting the young insects before they grow large enough to cause visible damage. Granular products watered into the soil tend to work better than surface sprays, since the insects live underground. Late-season applications against large adults are less reliable and essentially amount to damage control for the current year.
Preventing New Infestations
Mole crickets are attracted to lights at night during their spring mating flights, so reducing outdoor lighting near problem areas can help limit new arrivals. Overwatering creates the moist conditions they prefer, so adjusting irrigation to keep your lawn healthy without staying perpetually saturated makes the habitat less inviting.
Monitoring is the most practical form of prevention. Map the areas where you’ve had damage and check them in late winter for signs of loosened soil or poor turf growth. Run soap flush tests in late spring to catch nymphs early. Catching a population when it’s young and small gives you the best chance of protecting your lawn before the visible damage begins in fall.