cricket
The Cricket
Acheta domesticus
Crickets are a living food for reptiles, frogs,
spiders and wateranimals like fish and salamanders:
they eat the crickets that fall in the water.
A lot of birds feed on living dead crickets.
Crickets are very cheap and easy to raise,
but have two disadvantages:
- They easely escape.
- adult ckrickets make a irritating noise.
It's for those reasons that the field cricket
is gainingpopularity.
Some Cricket habits
Crickets are mostly nocturnal: they become active
and vocal, chirping, during the night. In the Orient
the house cricket is kept in small cages for
this purpose, but mostly escaped chirping
crickets can keep you awake alnight.
Catch these noisemakers by using the carpet
cleaning machine. The house cricket love warmth,
but avoids light
Preventing crickets from escaping
Crickets are excellent climbers and jumpers,
sandcrickets can climb against glass.
Use the wingless house cricket or use the fieldcricket.
house cricket
Were to keep them
Plastic jars (tupperware) are ok , don't put
sand on the bottom, it will make it harder to clean
A dot of paper or egg carton sections turned
upside down make a good hiding space.
will give them a hiding place.
Feeding the crickets
Give youre crickets chicken mash as a food
dog food can be given as a supplement
Water need to be clean , but can quickly become
contaiminated with droppings. small crickets easely
dissapear under water,get drown as crickets are
terrible swimmers. A cotton
The best temperature
At 31 °Celsius or 88 °Fahrenheit is the optimal
temperature for raising crickets. At a lower
temperature the mortality rate goes up fastly.
With an reptile type heater its easy to maintain
a good temperature, if use lamp bulbs there is
always a risk of overheating (fire) and crickets
don't like light.
Humidity
Dry is the best , if things get humid then mites wil appear.
a cricket
raising crickets
Breeding start when the crickets are just two
months old. The eggs are lais in sand. When the
eggs start to hatch , miniature crickets will
appear. These minicrickets are so small that
its hard to prevent them escaping. It takes
2 months before they get adults. The miniature
crickets feed and drink like the older ones.
|
wingless cricket , vergroting 10x
A male fieldcricket is an alternative for
the home cricket
Escaping Crickets
The biggest disadvantage of raising crickets is that
sooner or later some crickets will escape and settle in
youre lovely house, start chirping in youre right ear
in the middle of the, and so making youre beautiful
live miserable.
The smallest crickets are called sandcrickets and they have
the ability to walk against glass, and are so small that they
can escape through invisble holes. I think that its for this
reason that fieldcrickets are getting more popular these days.
If a cricket has escaped use youre vacuum cleaner
to catch those terrorists. Don't forget to empty it,
as crickets can survive in youre machine.
Cricket.
The differences between house and fieldcricket.
house cricket.........................fieldcricket
- brown..............................black
- noisy chirpy.......................less noise,not anoying
- multiply in youre house....don't multiply
- easy to buy.........less easy to buy
- smell less...............-smell
- easy escaping..don't try to escape
- sensitiv for cold.............survive in nature
- love smashed chicken food....eat green plant parts
Anatomy
cricket anatomy
natural enemies of the crickets
Birds are there biggest enemies, centipedes,
millipedes and spiders all love crickets as a dinner.
Frogs and reptiles also, fishes and salamander catch the
crickets that fall in the pond, a thing
that cricket easely do.
Detecting Enemies
The Cricket has two excursions called cerci
These cerci are covered with fine hairs. With these
hairs the cricket detects subsonic sound waves.
By using these soundwaves the cricket can localize the
direction of the enemy and thus escaping in the other
direction.
Female and Male Crickets
Female crickets.......................Male crickets
Three excrusions on the end......two excrusions
more develloped wings.............smaller wings
slightly larger............................slightly smaller
The third excrusion of the fenale cricket is called
the ovipoositor, used for laying laying eggs in the sand.
Cricket Sing Song
(sung to "Must be Santa" by Raffe)
What has an ear on its leg?
Crickets have ears on their legs.
What uses wings to chirp a song?
Crickets use their wings to chirp a song.
Chirp a song
ear on leg (clap,
Must be crickets (clap, clap)
Must be crickets (clap, clap)
Must be crickets in our room.
What has six legs and two cerci?
Crickets have six legs and two cerci.
What has wings and two antennae?
Crickets have wings and two antennae.
Two antennae, legs and cerci
ear on leg, chirp a song (clap, clap)
Must be crickets (clap, clap)
Must be crickets (clap, clap)
Must be crickets in our room.
What has a nose in its antennae
Crickets have a nose in their antennae
What has a black exoskeleton
Crickets have a black exoskeleton
Two antennae, legs and cerci
ear on leg, chirp a song
Must be crickets (chirp, chirp)
Must be crickets (chirp, chirp)
Must be crickets in our room
fieldcricket , a gravure from A.E, Brehm .
1 young cricket
2 fighting females
3 newborn fieldcrickets
4 male fieldcricket
illustrations of A.E. Brehm
Alfred Brehm (1829-1884) is of the writer
"Tierleben " or Brehms "Life of animals".
The illustrations from this book can be found here:
bugs
snails and slugs
Red Squirrel
bumble bees
been weevil
housefly
crab
great pond snail
ground beetles
crested newt
dronefly
scorpionfly
man of war
seastars and bristle stars
porpita porpita and Velella
precious coral
feather duster worm or Spirographis spallanzi
illustrations from Brehm:
bumble bee
beanweazle
housefly
crab
pondsnail
tigerbeetle
pondscater
gammarus
Aquatic sowbug
waterspider
ruby-tailed wasp
Living food
Give youre frogs, fishes, lizards and salamanders living food.
have a look:
food for fishes and salamanders
Daphnia
Cyclops , a copepod
Diaptomus
Infusoria
Artemia
Bloodworm
glassworm
Mysis
Rotifers
Brachionus calyciflorus
Vineger eels
Microworms
White worms
house mosquito larvae
| |
