Reflections in Nature: The Chirping of Crickets Comes from Males | News, Sports, Jobs

I have been helping Mary Alice replant perennials. This year, with all the weeds from the many rainy days, she decided to remove one garden. However, several lemon lilies, peonies, butterfly bushes and other flowers had to be dug up, moved and planted elsewhere.

That's not new, because she was always moving plants in our garden, just like people move furniture in the house.

While I was digging, I noticed several insects jumping out. Although they looked like crickets, they were quite small and I wasn’t sure what they were. When I got inside the house, I looked up information about the cricket and found out that young crickets molt 8-10 times. This takes over two months, with the last molt occurring in late summer.

“You don't need tickets

To listen to crickets.

They chirp and squeak for free.

They play the violin and sing

By rubbing each wing,

And will never charge you.” — author unknown

Towards the end of the summer, the wings of the male crickets will grow and as soon as this happens, we will hear the song of the male crickets. The song starts when a male cricket establishes his territory and chases away other males. The males start singing to call the females. At first, the males produce a standard tone, which is the three-note chirp that we all know. When it is time to mate, the courtship song is a continuous trill.

The English language has two completely unrelated words for cricket. One is the name for a small grasshopper-like insect that comes from the Old French word criquer, meaning to click or creak, and doubtless derived from the sound the cricket makes.

The other cricket is a game that is thought to come from another old French word croquet, meaning stick. Another possible explanation is that it comes from the Flemish word krick-stol, which is a long, low stool with a shape reminiscent of the early types of wickets.

A cricket is a medium-sized jumping insect, with long thread-like antennae. There are many types of crickets: field crickets and mole crickets that live on the ground and others, such as tree crickets that live in bushes and trees.

The house cricket is not common in the United States, but the field cricket is found in homes and is often called a house cricket.

Only the male cricket sings. The chirp, which is more of a fiddle than a song, is produced by scraping a file on the underside of the wing against a file on the upper side of the opposite organ.

Crickets sing an impressive variety of songs, each with its own purpose. A male's call song invites receptive females to come closer and get to know him. The female is then serenaded with a courtship song as he tries to convince her that he is the best of her suitors. If the female accepts him as a mate, the male may sing a song announcing their partnership.

Male crickets also sing rival songs to defend their territory from competitors. Each species of cricket produces its own distinctive call, with a unique volume and pitch. Up to three different songs may be sung to the female before mating.

A female cricket can be identified by the long ovipositor at the end of her abdomen. Don't be confused by the two sharp spikes or tails that protrude from her abdomen, as both males and females have these. Male crickets are generally larger and have wings that extend beyond their abdomen. They also produce the loud chirping sound that is so often associated with crickets.

Female crickets, on the other hand, are smaller and have shorter wings that do not extend past their abdomens. If the cricket sings, it is of course a male, since the female does not sing.

In late summer, the female pushes this ovipositor into the ground, where she lays her eggs. When the young crickets hatch in the spring, they resemble their parents, except that they have no wings.

In the wild, field crickets dig holes in the ground or hide under rocks, planks and leaf litter. Crickets eat grass, grains, fruit and dead animals. Sometimes they become cannibals and eat each other.

It is supposed that we can approximate the Fahrenheit temperature by counting the number of chirps of a cricket in a fourteen-second period and then adding forty. This mathematical equation was published by Amos Dolbear and became known as Dolbear's law. As a rule, a cricket does not chirp when the temperature drops below fifty-five degrees or rises above one hundred degrees.

It is said that a cricket on the hearth is an omen of good luck. However, crickets sometimes eat carpets, upholstered furniture and clothing.

Have you ever tried to find a cricket chirping? If you walk toward the cricket's song, the song will stop. Both sexes have ears on their front legs, just below their knees. Because the cricket has ears on its legs, it can detect the slightest vibration of your footsteps. The best way for a cricket to avoid predation is to remain still.

Some crickets, such as mole crickets, live in a single hole in the ground. When a cricket returns to its home and finds another cricket, a fight of biting ensues. Often the fight ends in the death of one of the crickets, with the winner eating the loser.

It's hard to believe that this aggressive insect repellent produces the cheerful chirping sounds that we enjoy so much on an autumn evening.

Bill Bower is a retired Pennsylvania Game Commission Wildlife Officer. Read his blog and listen to his nature podcasts at www.onemaningreen.com.