Crickets ready to sing their songs
September 9, 2001

The nostalgic music of the fall field cricket (Gryllus Pennsylvanicus) heralds the waning of summer. Its song elicits a range of human feelings, from the term "merry as a cricket" to being considered a "plaintive cry" from happiness to utter loneliness are the feelings instilled by their chirping, called a song because it has a pitch that can be imitated by the human voice.

Much to the annoyance of one researching the reason for the song is that it is controversial. How it is made has been established.

First, catch a cricket. A male would be preferred as they are supposed to be the singers. Females have long egg-laying tubes called the ovipositor at the end of her body, which she thrusts into the ground when she lays her eggs.

Crickets are easy to keep as pets as they feed on melons and other juicy fruits as well as lettuce and most bread.

Observe that the insect holds its wing covers at a 45 degree angle. Examine the wing covers with a hand lens. Note that the veins form a scroll pattern which makes a sounding board for the wing membrane. At the base of the wing are crossbars which act as a file.

Near the base of the same wing is a hardened area known as a scraper. The cricket sounds his notes by drawing the scraper of the under wing cover against the file of the overlapping one. The surrounding air vibrates giving rise to sounds that travel long distances.

Controversy: (Stokes) Most cricket calls are made by males. They give a call to attract females of their own species.

(Headstrom) "At one time it was believed that the male crickets chirp to attract females, but this view was discarded when it was found that the females do not always respond. Actually, their chirps, as we hear them, have no meaning to crickets."

(From Nature in Miniature) Headstrom again...Adventures with insects. "A sound producing apparatus is not much use to the crickets unless they can hear the sounds.

Whether insects can hear is a rather controversial question, although there seems little doubt that some of them can hear." He goes on to tell that a female cricket will move closer to a male when it is chirping.

How do crickets hear? Look at the tibia of the front leg for a small white disclike spot. This is the ear. Females listen to the song with the aid of a thin, flat membrane on the lower part of their forelegs.

(Barenbaum...Ninety-nine Gnats, Nits and Nibbles). It is generally believed that chirps are incidental and there are special continuous courtship songs.

Whatever the means, the females eventually lay eggs, singly deep into the soil. The eggs overwinter in the north. All others die of frost.

Young nymphs emerge in the spring and develop their adult wings in several stages, maturing in late summer, when their songs begin.