Crickets In Our Terrarium

This is what the crickets in our terrarium look like.

Found at: http://www.the-piedpiper.co.uk/graphics1/housecricket1.jpg

                                                                            5-10-08

   In our class, we have been creating terrariums and aquariums for a fun science activity. We have put some type of crickets in our terrariums. After a couple of weeks, our cricket (which we named Tandrew) had a ton of babies! Then we found out that our crickets are house crickets. We researched them and we found out that they can have up to 100 babies! Then next day, we had about 50 baby house crickets.  But sadly then next day, Tandrew died. We inferred that his death was caused because it had so many babies.

 Found at: http://creatures.ifas.ufl.edu/misc/crickets/adomest.html 

 This is the geographic location of the house crickets.

These are the baby house crickets.

 Found at: http://johnbokma.com/mexit/2005/11/07/baby-crickets.jpg

 Found at: http://creatures.ifas.ufl.edu/misc/crickets/gsigilla.html

This is the geographic location of the tropica house crickets.  

                                                                                                            5-15-08

   Today our terrarium is the same. Only a few crickets died, which we found out is normal. What we predicted is that they died from getting so wet and being close together with other baby house crickets.

5-19-08

Sadly, today all of our baby crickets have dissapeared or died.

Interesting Facts

• They feed on plants such as grass
• Their predators are squirels and frogs
• Their habitat is wet moist areas
•  It's life cycle is incomplete egg-nymph-adult
• The can live up to 2-3 years

      What We Think Happened To Our Crickets

    What we think happened to the baby crickets is that they maybe burrowed underground or something like that. Or they could have just died from a desease in the terrarium or they died from getting so wet.

 This is a more advanced picture of house crickets.

Found at: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/184/390802320_12f9c0e98f.jpg?v=0

All crickets reach sexual maturity between eight and twelve weeks after birth. Males attract mates by rubbing their wings together to produce a noise sometimes referred to as "chirping". Technically, this process is called stirdulation. Interestingly enough, the rate in which a cricket chirps is determined by the temperature outside. When it is warmer, crickets chirp faster. Scientists can actually tell the exact outdoor temperature by timing the rate of cricket chirpings. After the male mates with female, the female will lay 15to 100 eggs in the ground or any soft surface. Then the eggs hatch in about two weeks.  

  This is the circulatory system of a cricket.

Found at: http://www.biol.sc.edu/~vogt/courses/neuro/cricket.jpg