Monday, September 15, 2008

My Theory About Crickets

Yesterday I did a whole bunch of things. In the morning I did a hike with Professor Chuck up in Jeremy Ranch to check out a new hybrid oak I found a couple weeks back (it’s a biggie- a star of my upcoming hybrid oak series.) In the afternoon I took the Trifecta out birthday-shopping for the Awesome Wife, whose “39th” is coming up later this week. And then in the late afternoon/early evening I did an easy mtn bike ride up around Pinebrook.

What did these 3 activities have in common? Just this: the whole day, wherever I went, I heard crickets chirping. And so this is as good a time as any to go off on my Late Summer Day-Chirping Theory of Crickets.

Tangent: Like pretty much all of my "theories”, this is of course more of a “hypothesis”, since it’s not based on any real hard science or data or experimental results, so much as it is just me going off half-cocked… But I like saying that I have a “theory”, because then the idea sounds somewhat “weightier”…

The “theory” is based on my observation over the last several years that in the early and middle summer. Crickets chirp at night, but rarely during the day. But as you get into late August and through September, it seems like crickets chirp pretty much all day long. Why is this?

Necessary Geeky Cricket Background

Crickets” include all insects in the family Gryllidae, which is defined as the family of “true crickets”, and does not include various cricket-like insects such as Katydids, Grasshoppers or Mormon “Crickets.” Even so, there are over 900 species of Gryllidae worldwide. But the nice-sounding bugs we hear at night are specifically Field Crickets, which belong to the sub-family Gryllinae (yes, it’s the same exact word except with the “d” replaced with an “n”- way confusing...)

There are 20 species of Field Cricket, representing 7 different genera in the US and Canada. 3 of those species, representing 3 of the 7 genera, are exotics, brought from the old world- deliberately or accidentally- by humans. Of the remaining native species, the most widespread (and to my knowledge only field cricket here in Utah) is Gryllus pennsylanicus. G. Pennsylvanicus is found pretty much all over the lower 48 states with the big exception of the Southeast and Gulf Coast, which have their own impressive array of crickets.

All true crickets chirp by rubbing their fore-wings together. Only male crickets (pic below right) chirp. There are supposedly at least 4 different chirps: a “trolling” chirp (my term), calling out to any nearby females, a “courting” chirp, targeting a specific nearby female, a Warning chirp, indicating the presence of a nearby predator, and what appears to be a “post-coital” chirp, the function of which I don’t know, but seems analogous to a post-coital cigarette in the human world.

Bugs don’t have mammal-style ears, but many bugs can “hear” via different organs. In the case of crickets, they have an ear-like organ, complete with a little tympanic drum, on the insides of their knees. Females deposit fertilized eggs- up to 400 per season underground. All adult field crickets die come winter, but their eggs survive, hatching in the Spring and repeating the cycle anew.

The obvious reason why field crickets chirp at night most of the season is because there are a lots of things that eat crickets- birds, squirrels, shrews (not to mention a parasitic fly which lays its eggs on live crickets) and these things generally have an easier time finding crickets during the day. So crickets generally lay low during the day and wait until nightfall to start singing.

Tangent: You’ve probably noticed that day or night, if you try to locate a cricket by honing in on its chirp, when you get close enough it usually has the good sense to shut up. Evolution has clearly favored crickets that shut the hell up when something big is looming over them.

So Why Chirp By Day?

OK, so we know why they chirp, at night, and we know why they shut up during the day. But why do male crickets chirp at during the day at the very end of the summer? My theory: Because they have nothing to lose.

A male cricket who gets eaten/taken out back in June loses a huge opportunity- the chance to mate dozens of times throughout the summer and leave hundreds of offspring. But by mid-September, time is running out. The cricket has at most a few weeks to live. To hold back now during the day means, at best, mere days of additional life. And so the male crickets put it out there; they chirp day and night, trying to mate one last time before the frost gets them.

I’m not suggesting that male crickets sit around consciously noodling this out, like an MIT student gaming a casino or something. Rather I think that male crickets who tend to chirp by day as the days become shorter tend to produce slightly more offspring than crickets who stay day-silent till season-end, and thereby transmit more of their late-season-day-chirping genes to the next generation of G. pennsylvanicus.

I like my cricket theory for 2 reasons. First, it’s cool to think about why stuff happens the way it does in the world around you. Second is the weird applicability to us; in our own lives, we’re repeatedly presented with decisions that entail risks. And in our own way, we’re just like the crickets- our time is limited. We probably won’t die this winter, or the next, but one of these years we will die. The key to life is figuring out when to day-chirp.

15 comments:

The Martinduo said...

Hey Watcher,
I just found your cricket blog via Google. I'm doing a (free) iPhone app about cricket calls. It's a learning exercise for me to learn iPhone programming. I would love to extract your theory to provide as info in the app. "bruce at martinduo dot com"

Watcher said...

Bruce- go right ahead. Keep in mind though that the "theory" is just conjecture.

Anonymous said...

Love love love this blog. My dad just passed away a few weeks ago. He was a nature lover to no end, and he taught me everything there is to know about all animals and creatures. I never got a chance to ask him why crickets chirp in the daytime at the end of summer. I'm sitting in my backyard in Delaware now, wondering if anyone else ever noticed this. I love your theory, and I do agree that this theory should most definitely apply to our lives..

Watcher said...

Anon- I'm sorry about your Dad. He sounds like a great guy, and how lucky for you that he shared with you so much of his knowledge and passion for the natural world. I hope your memories of him are a source of comfort to you in the short-term, and happiness in the long.

Anonymous said...

Seasonal and Daily Chirping Cycles

http://kb.osu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/1811/5307/V67N04_200.pdf

Anonymous said...

Thank you Watcher, that was one of the most gracefully put compliments I have heard about my father since he passed. I have shared this blog with my family, and continue to listen to those crickets in my backyard- giving it everything they have got all day long!

Unknown said...

I was driving with my curious six-year old daughter on a cool May day just recently. The windows of the truck were down slightly and were heard the chirping of a cricket outside. My daughter said to me, "I thought crickets only chirped at night." I told I wasn't sure but maybe they like to chirp when it is cool out so that is what brings them out at night and maybe cool spring days as well. Then I asked her if she was studying crickets in school. She said no. I asked her who told her crickets only chirp at night. She said she just noticed that's the only time she's heard them chirp. I'm curious to see if she will notice the increased end of summer daytime chirping this summer. I don't remember being so observant about the natural world when I was her age!

Unknown said...

Hollywood also teaches us that crickets chirp at night. Think of every scene in a TV show or movie where you heard crickets, it's always evening or night. The 6-YO probably picked up on that too like I did when I was little. Growing up in Arizona I thought it was weird to hear crickets in the middle of the day. Now I live in Kansas with 4 seasons and hear them during the day in late summer. Soon the nights will get too cold for them to chirp at night.

Drelhak said...

I just got back from a section hike on the Appalachian Trail in northern Tennessee (Sept 17-20). Late the first night (I would guess between 2-4am) I was awake in the shelter the crickets were chirping loud when all of a sudden they all fell silent. The woods were then completely silent! I must say it freaked me out a little. I had no idea why they all stopped in unison. They had been chirping loud and non-stop all night up to that point. I was perfectly still and not moving about when it happened.

The next night the same thing happened again, this time however I noticed a chill in the air right after they went silent. I was wondering if the crickets might have stopped because the air temp suddenly dropped below some critical temp. Any thoughts?

Eetheart said...

Good stuff!

Unknown said...

Very cool! I'm writing a story with crickets as characters and came across this. Definitely bookmarked. Hope to read more from you.

WestsideIlluminati said...

Really cool theory! I would consider myself to be an amateur scientist in a sense, or rather, an hobby scientist - but I came across your blog whilst sitting outside pondering why it is that the crickets are chirping as it's currently mid to late afternoon (Australian summer here too) and being close to the end of January know it's common for them here to start day chirping. I've got a few theories of my own I've developed over the years as for some reason, I've always been fascinated by these little guys! Last autumn I released close to 4000 live crickets, after noticing a strong decline in the population in prior years. My goal was to see a) if it would increase and if so, by how much and b) if the weather patterns from the time I released them varied from the prior year (using data from the BoM and from my own observations) and have found that whilst the year leading up to today (25/1/17 here currently) did vary drastically weather wise ie; the year prior was a warmer winter and very hot spring for my area that it did plateau back and generally remained above average in temperature, along with several unexpected 'once in a' weather events. After hearing none the winter before, I was fortunate enough to start seeing the population rise by the end of winter which brought a lovely chorus with it and can safely say the population is doing well having been lucky enough to see a few of them wandering around the back yard late at night. It's now late January and the day chirping has begun, so I'm hoping the next year will give me a bigger field of data to work with across the whole but otherwise I'd have to say your theory seems to fit quite well with what I'm seeing here on the other side of the world.

Jonathan Evans said...

I have noticed this too. (Which is why and did a search and found your post.) I wondered If I was correct in noticing that at the end of summer you hear crickets during the day, but not earlier in the summer. I heard it recently and wondered why it felt like fall to me. It seemed to be the crickets.

Unknown said...

Its October 16,2020. The temperature is about 37degrees in macomb county michigan...the leaves are completely off the tree in front of my house..Since the last 3 years the leaves were on until the last week of October/first week of November..so on October 15, 2020 all the leaves have fell off..INTERESTING ENOUGH FOR THE LAST 3 WEEKS THE CRICKETS HAVE CHIRPED NON STOP..ONLY HEARD 2 this past week..I always concluded that Winter and the Cold weather this year is 3 Weeks Early...ITS BY THE START OF CHIRPING OF CRICKETS SPRING HAS ARRIVED..AND WINTER WILL BE 3 WEEKS EARLY AND THE COLD SINCE THE CRICKETS STOPPED CHIRPING I HAVE NOTICED THIS FOR OVER 40 YEARS.ITS 7:30 AM EST. OCTOBER 16, 2020

Unknown said...

BY PHYLLIS THOMAS THE POST FROM MICHIGAN