Crickets

All 3 species of crickets on WAnimals

Each one has its own full profile. This group does not replace them: it brings them together.

Conservation status

Where they live

Recorded in 49 countries. The ones with the most species in the group:

Where to see them

Did you know…?

• It eats plants, fruit, seeds and insects, including eggs, larvae and the remains of other animals.

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• It digs individual burrows in dry grassland, heath and bare ground across Europe.

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• In the United Kingdom it was once reckoned the country's most threatened cricket, down to barely 100 individuals in a single Sussex village in the 1990s.

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• It has neither wings nor sound-producing organs: unlike house crickets it does not sing, because in the total darkness underground sound would be no use for recognising its own kind.

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• Nor does it have tympana: it navigates by its extremely long antennae, which sweep the ground in the dark like canes.

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• It jumps explosively and erratically when disturbed, with no control over direction, which lets it escape a predator in a confined space.

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• Only the male sings, rubbing a scraper on one wing against a file on the other; the rate of the song speeds up with temperature so regularly that it can be used to estimate it.

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Ecosystems