Surprisingly, among pets there may be an ordinary cricket. The types and lifestyle of these insects, as well as nutrition, reproduction, content and interesting facts can be found in this article.
History of appearance and types of crickets
These insects appeared on the planet approximately 300 million years ago. They belong to the order Orthoptera and the family Real crickets, which includes 8 subfamilies. Zoologists describe so far 2,300 different species discovered. Approximately 50 varieties of crickets live on the territory of Russia. Of these, the most popular are brownie and field.
Habitats
Crickets are indigenous to the Far East and North Africa. But then they spread throughout Europe. Somewhat later appeared in North America and South Australia. Field cricket prefers steppe and forest-steppe zones and mountainous European regions. In the center of Russia, it is most often found in the north of the country, on the border of the range.
In the Tula region, field cricket can be found mainly in the southern strip of spotted, in Vanevsky, Kimovsky, Efremovsky, Odoevsky, Kurkinskyand Novomoskovsky districts.
Field cricket: habitat and habitats
Crickets are thermophilic insects. They live in places where the temperature reaches at least 20 degrees. At a lower temperature, insects become inactive and almost completely stop feeding. In villages, crickets love places near stoves in winter and go to live in nature in summer. They prefer warmth, light and sun. Willingly settle in meadows and fields.
In the mountains, crickets choose to live on usually calm dry slopes, where limestones are exposed or settle in adjacent heaths and meadows. But where they warm up well. Now crickets are more “modernized” and prefer to live not behind stoves, but on livestock farms. There for them not only heat, but also a lot of food. Or they settle in warm basements, boiler rooms and heating mains.
Appearance
Field cricket is quite small in size. Body length - from 17 to 23 centimeters. Males are larger than females. Crickets have a large head and a dense body. They are mostly black in color, but brown ones also come across. They have short front wings. Field crickets, unlike other types of counterparts, are larger. The coloration is darker, the thighs are red below and inside.
Females have a thin ovipositor at the back, widened at the tip. And the shins are reddish. Males are distinguished by the presence of a mirror on the elytra. The sound apparatus is similar to that of a grasshopper. But crickets are more complex.
These insects have long antennae and three pairs of legs. Whole body (abdomen, chest)and head) is covered with a strong chitinous cuticle. The jaws (mandibles) of crickets are quite powerful. All sense organs are well developed - touch, smell and sight. Crickets are great at smelling and tasting food thanks to their antennae.
Field cricket: lifestyle features
He is the only representative of insects who builds a nest for himself, in which he lives his entire adult short life. Crickets are loners by nature. Each individual has its own territory. If it belongs to a male, then he can allow several females to live nearby.
Crickets live in nature in burrows up to 20 centimeters deep and 2 cm wide. They never go far from their home. At the slightest danger, the cricket hides in a hole. The entrance to it masks a bunch of grass. Crickets are very cautious and shy, as they have a lot of enemies - small mammals, birds and lizards.
Fighting technique
When you meet an unexpected fellow, there is always a fight. These insects defend their territory from invasion. During the fight, they bite. And they try to gnaw off the antennae or paws of the opponent. Crickets butt heads, make sharp attacks and kick hard. True, these insects jump badly, but they quickly move on their paws. Despite the fact that crickets eat plant foods, the defeated opponent is eaten by the winner.
Food
Basically, field cricket feeds on plant foods. But periodically other, smaller insects enter the diet. Adult crickets can even hunton small relatives or eat clutches of eggs laid by females. What does a field cricket eat in captivity? When kept at home, he eats crumbs of cheese and bread, milk, pieces of various fruits.
Reproduction
During the breeding season, males sit by their minks and call females with songs. Raising the front wings, the gentleman rubs them. Due to this, a kind of love serenade in the form of a chirp is obtained. The female may or may not come. If, nevertheless, the date took place, then soon she lays about 30 testicles in the ground. For the entire breeding period in total - up to 500.
During mating, the field cricket hangs a spermatophore from the abdomen of the chosen one, similar to that of grasshoppers. But crickets don't have spermatophylax. When the female begins to lay eggs, she sticks her ovipositor vertically into the ground. Then he closes the hole, moves to the next place, and the procedure is repeated.
The larvae appear between two and four weeks. And in appearance they already look like adults in miniature. There is no pupation stage in crickets. The larvae always stick together. They molt three times during growth. And then they start to separate. Each cricket begins to dig its own hole and prepare for wintering.
On the surface after winter, a young field cricket is selected in the spring, when the temperature reaches +4 degrees. The last time a molt occurs, and after it the insects become adults. Then a new breeding season begins.
Contents
There are people who keep crickets at home in insectariums (special kindergartens). They are mostly made from plastic. One garden can hold a hundred crickets. It is important to provide enough food and water, as well as to maintain a comfortable temperature for these insects. Protein foods must be included in the diet. Crickets are happy to eat dry food for aquarium fish - gammarus or daphnia. If the insects do not have enough protein food, they will begin to eat their weaker counterparts.
How to get rid of crickets
How to destroy a field cricket living at home? There are several ways to do this:
- You can use a natural trap. Condensed milk is poured into a small container. It is mixed with water and placed near the place where the cricket lives. An insect attracted by the smell jumps into the prepared syrup.
- Chemical trap. It is used indoors when there are no pets or small children in the house.
- Adhesive strips. They are placed at windows, on doors and walls. Insects stick to them.
- Spray. You can use any from insects, even Dichlorvos. But spraying such sprays should be done if there are no children or pets at home.
- Some people use a regular vacuum cleaner to kill crickets. You need to change or remove the nozzle and walk around all the corners in the house. In this way, even unborn offspring can be exterminated.
For reproductioncrickets important ecology. The field cricket eats not only plant foods, but also eats smaller counterparts. And even the corpses of insects, since crickets need protein. But due to their indefatigable appetite, they can also cause considerable harm in summer cottages. Crickets eat any plants and their roots. Therefore, sometimes the owners of cottages have to get rid of the invasion of "singers". There are several ways to do this:
- use of complex measures - chemical and agrotechnical;
- not bad helps the usual loosening of the earth;
- the site can be treated with Antonem-F or Nemabakt biological products;
- install birdhouses or bird feeders on the site;
- very good help in the fight snakes (these are the enemies of crickets);
- after harvesting in the fall, you need to clean the area, clearing it of pieces of wood, chips and film residues to prevent crickets from wintering under them;
- you can use box lures;
- wormwood can simply be laid out between the beds or water the ground with a decoction prepared from this herb;
- you can sprinkle the ground near the stems with hot hot pepper.
Cricket fights "no rules"
The aggressiveness of male crickets gave rise to an unusual gambling spectacle - fights. There is a version that they were invented in China about 1000 years ago, during the reign of Sun. But cricket fights were also held with no less success in Thailand and Malaysia.
For this, insects were caught at the end of summer. Then male crickets were released into the mini-arena. They instantly started to fight, untilvictorious end. The loser was thrown out of the arena, fled from it, or his opponent killed him. The winner was even given a certain title.
Such cricket fights were very expensive, the stakes were very high. The remains of the winners were then kept in silver mini-coffins. During their lifetime, specially hired people looked after the fighting crickets. Insects sat on a specially designed diet, and when they had a cold, they were even given medicines. To raise the tone and morale of the crickets, females were brought daily for 2 hours.
Kept fighting insects in special semi-precious houses or in a gourd or bamboo hollowed out from the inside. Sometimes cages were made of ivory or tortoiseshell. The most beautiful houses were only in the imperial palaces.
Features
The field cricket is an endangered species. It is noted as a rare and narrow-local species. In the Tula region, only 9 habitats of the field cricket have been observed. This is a rare species. Crickets are not at all prone to resettlement, but if their numbers increase, especially in hot summers, then insects can scatter and settle even hundreds of meters from their usual habitats. Since they dig holes for themselves, they avoid settling on arable land or in places of excavation.
The life cycle of crickets is 90 to 120 days. But an adult insect lives only a month and a half. There are also "long-livers" who live for 7 months, but they live in the tropics. Field crickets, including wintering, - from 14 to 15 months.
Cricketthe field sings with the help of elytra, with which it rubs against each other. They are stiff, and during this process a beautiful trill is produced. Crickets can sing all day long, often in the evenings and even at night. But at the slightest danger or anxiety, they calm down and hide in their holes.
