The reason for the increase in the insect's numbers is unclear, although they have done much better in an urban environment than in the wild, and it has been suggested that some ecological controlling factor is absent in its suburban habitat.

With the arrival of suburban dwellers, irrigated gardens provided lush, forest-like conditions, an environment more suited to king crickets.

[1][5] The female has a well-developed sword-like ovipositor, through which she may lay between 80 and 200 eggs in damp or wet topsoil during the mating season.

Libanasidus vittatus is omnivorous, feeding on slugs, snails, and moth larvae such as cutworms, as well as a fairly wide range of vegetable matter.

In turn the king crickets have their own natural predators, such as the hadeda ibis, fiscal shrike and helmeted guineafowl, birds at home in the urban habitat are able to deal with such large insects.

Although perceptive South Africans commonly regard Parktown prawns as desirable in gardens, they can be unwelcome visitors indoors, where they are seen as pests; the insects can jump actively and often eject offensive black faecal liquids when threatened.

[8] A popular urban legend, propagated by April Fools' Day articles published by the Johannesburg newspaper The Star, claims that the Parktown prawn was the result of a genetic experiment by students from the University of the Witwatersrand in the 1960s (thus explaining the insects' sudden arrival in Johannesburg at that time).

They are the subject of a song that was crowd-sourced, written and performed on 23 February 2018 by Amanda Palmer in Johannesburg, South Africa.