House Cricket

There are more than 900 species of crickets worldwide and they can be found almost anywhere in the world except cold areas. Crickets are mainly nocturnal animals that usually betray their presence due to one of their interesting features – chirping sound called stridulation. Only cricket males make the sound because they use it to attract females. It is also used to deter neighbouring males from getting too close, it sounds to them like: „Stay away, I am strong and will defend my territory!“ Males make sound by rasping basal parts of forewings against each other. Wings have special adaptation for sound production in that area so males can produce both loud and nice sound. Adult females can be easily recognised by bearing at the tip of the abdomen an ovipositor that looks like a sharp-tipped hollow needle. Females can pierce the ground with it and deposit through its clusters of eggs in the soil where they are more protected against predators.