Cricket is a jumping insect related to grasshoppers. The wings of most crickets lie flat over each other on top of their backs. Other crickets have only tiny wings or are wingless. The slender antennae (feelers) grow much longer than the body in most kinds of crickets. Female crickets lay eggs through a long, needlelike ovipositor.
The songs of crickets are produced mainly by the males. Each kind of cricket has a different song, usually trills or a series of chirps. Crickets make sound by rubbing their two front wings together. They hear sound with organs in their front legs. The songs help males and females find each other.
Crickets commonly live in pastures and meadows and along roads. Sometimes they enter houses. Crickets eat plants and the remains of other insects.
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The best-known crickets include the house cricket of Europe and the common, black, or field cricket of the United States. These black or brown insects measure about 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) long. Tree crickets are white or pale green. They live on trees and shrubs and feed on small insects called aphids. Male tree crickets sing in chorus. Their song is a high-pitched treet-treet-treet. The tiny ant-loving crickets are wingless and as broad as they are long. They live in ants’ nests and eat ants’ young. Mormon crickets, camel (cave) crickets, mole crickets, and Jerusalem crickets are not considered true crickets (see Mole cricket; Mormon cricket).
See also Grasshopper.
