Interesting Information About a Cricket

Crickets are a type of insect known for their distinctive call and jumping ability. Similar to grasshoppers, crickets can be found in many different types of habitat across the world, from caves to beaches to prairies. People have used them in cuisine and have even made them pets, valued for their "kickboxing" skills or their song.

  1. Features

    • A cricket can jump up to 30 times its own body length, or about three feet. A cricket doesn't need to take a running jump, but can instead leap great distances from a sitting position. In order to hear each other's calls, crickets possess relatively sophisticated hearing organs or tympanums. These eardrums are located on the front legs.

    Life Cycle

    • A cricket begins its life as one of 300 eggs, typically laid buried in the soil during late summer or autumn. Upon hatching, a baby cricket immediately begins feeding upon almost anything within reach. Favorites include cloth, such as wool or silk, but vegetation, dead insects and paper are also acceptable. Among the cricket species are a few that can survive the winter as nymphs or young adults, but it's more common for a cricket to remain inside the egg until spring. Like most insects, a cricket has a short lifespan, instead relying upon sheer numbers to keep the species going. It's rare for a cricket to live longer than a year.

    Calls

    • In many parts of the world, a cricket's call is a familiar sound at night. The call is used to attract a mate, warn others of approaching danger or to ward off a rival. Only the male cricket makes this distinctive chirp. It does so by drawing a row of teeth-like structures on the underside of one wing across the smooth top of its other wing. The temperature affects the rate of the cricket's call reliably enough that a person can tell the approximate temperature outside by counting the number of chirps per minute.

    Cuisine

    • Crickets have long been used for food in various parts of the world, notably South Asia. Crickets impart a nutty crunch when served whole or in pieces, or can be roasted and ground into flour. Rich in iron and protein and low in fat, crickets barely impact the environment when compared to beef production. One thing to watch out for is that as they are arthropods. A person allergic to shrimp or lobster may also be allergic to insects.

    Fighting Crickets

    • For many hundreds of years, crickets have been popular in China and Japan as fighters, or "kick boxers." Cricket enthusiasts carefully selected a strong specimen, fed it a diet of seeds and smaller insects, and just before the match, starved it to promote aggression. Bets were placed and two hungry crickets faced off in a match to the death. Even today, cricket fighting tournaments are held in China, made more popular with the advent of television and the ability to zoom in on the opponents.