Besides the fact that they are really loud and there’s a famous one named Jiminy, what do you really know about crickets? They really are quite fascinating. Read on for information about crickets!
Cricket Sounds
Those chirping sounds you hear that can keep you up at night (if you have a cricket in your house), are only made by male crickets. They make the noise by rubbing their wings together. Their wings are ribbed which can intensify the sound of the chirp. The warmer the temperature is, the faster they can move, making the chirping louder. No wonder that sound is associated with a warm summer night!
Why Do Crickets Chirp
There are three reasons why crickets chirp:
1. A male is trying to attract a female
2. A male is about to fight another male
3. They are warning other crickets of a threat
Each of those chirps has a different pitch so the other crickets know the threat chirp from the mating chirp. For us, only technology or a highly trained ear can tell the difference. Some may find the chirps soothing or as a white noise that can actually help you sleep. But if you have one in your house and it’s incessantly chirping, it can also be seriously annoying.
Crickets vs Grasshoppers
The most obvious difference between grasshoppers and crickets is their shape. Grasshoppers are sausage-shaped with short antennae, while crickets have long thread-like antennae. Most crickets are brown or black without distinct markings, while grasshoppers can be colorful and often have patterned markings. Crickets have oval heads with two long antennae, while grasshoppers have tall heads with shorter antennae. A cricket’s legs will splay outward when viewed from above, but grasshoppers keep their legs tight alongside their body. Crickets will eat almost any type of food, while grasshoppers tend to eat only plants. The last major difference between these insects is their chirping activity and how they chirp. Crickets chirp at dawn and dusk, while grasshoppers make their chirping noises during the daytime. Crickets chirp by rubbing their wings together and grasshoppers rub a hind leg against the front part of the wing.
What Do Crickets Eat
As mentioned above, crickets aren’t picky eaters. Crickets are omnivores. That means a natural cricket diet consists of plants and meat and includes protein, grains, and produce. Crickets will consume a wide-ranging diet in the wild, including insect larvae, aphids, flowers, seeds, leaves, fruit, and grasses. So, in closing, they will eat almost anything. We can relate.
How to Get Rid of Crickets
Professional exclusion work can help keep crickets out of your home in the first place including sealing cracks and crevices in walls and foundations, sealing cracks and crevices around door and window frames, and ensuring door and window screens are in good condition and not torn. Placing weather stripping around windows and doors and putting door sweeps on all exterior doors are two smart exclusion techniques that can be implemented to keep out crickets and many other pests. You should keep doors shut when not in use which will also keep out crickets, ants, flies, stinging pests, rodents, your in-laws, etc.!
Cleaning up clutter and debris, ventilating your crawl space, and reducing moisture sources around your home or facility can all help as well. You should also trim tall grasses and overgrown vegetation away from the foundation of your building and keep the landscaping clean and clear. Remove excess piles of debris like woodpiles, rock piles, leaf piles, and grass piles from your property. Keeping storage areas in your home or business neat and organized can also help. They can cause some damage and of course, their chirping can be super annoying, so you could have a professional cricket exterminator come in to help.
We love that the chirps can be a love song or a war cry. It’s so interesting and kind of sweet. Well, the mating one is anyway. Now that you know some cool facts about crickets (and even some cool facts about grasshoppers), it’s easier to live among them. More often than not, people are afraid of bugs because they are misunderstood. The more you know, you know?