Crickets - and Katydids - in the House 2020

 

It’s time once again for my annual “Crickets in the House” post. This year’s entry will include information on cages, food, and behavior. There will be katydids as well as crickets and I’ll also introduce a new feline assistant, as our beloved Dmitri has passed on. My new assistant-in-training is Nikos, who appears to have been dumped in the early days of the pandemic and ran up to my car begging for help.   

 

I’ll start with accommodations. 

I began experimenting with mesh caterpillar/butterfly cages last year and decided these were definitely my best option for tree crickets and possibly katydids so far. I could hear the songs more clearly, ventilation was better than in glass or plastic terrariums with screen lids, and the insects could climb in every direction. Although I was concerned that the katydids might chew through them, that was never a problem.

 

I wrote about the Rattler Round-winged Katydid and Oblong-winged Katydid that lived here in “Amblycorypha Choristers” and they both did very well in mesh butterfly cages with ample plant material and food. They sang for hours at night in their peaceful room apart from all the crickets that would later join the concert. By day, this was the room from which I taught all my music theory classes remotely, due to the pandemic. At night, I’d often sit in its one comfortable chair, quietly grading assignments while listening to the soothing songs of the katydids

The ground crickets lived in plastic cages with clumps of grass, some leaves and twigs, and food at ground level. I learned last year that ground crickets strongly prefer to have a small rock to sit above the grass and leaf litter. I’d noticed this in the wild, especially for those in the Allonemobius genus such as the Allard’s and Striped Ground Crickets. 

        Striped Ground Cricket singing from a small rock in his plastic terrarium 

For the tree crickets and the katydids, each mesh cage needs to have appropriate vegetation - a requirement that becomes more challenging to fulfill in later November and December. I placed a small vase or glass bottle with plant cuttings in each cage, trying when possible to choose the plant species in which I typically find these insects in the wild. 

 

For example, Oblong-winged and Rattler Round-winged Katydids will likely prefer a leafy understory environment. Blackberry leaves work well for them with a few other plant cuttings added for variety.

Broad-winged Tree Crickets want broad leaves from which to sing. Blackberry works well for singing perches. They also hide motionless on the underside of such leaves as well. Since they are common in shrubs at the edge of meadows, I include plants that replicate where I find them.

 Broad-winged Tree Crickets are pale green earlier in the season, but tree crickets become increasingly yellowish when they're old. He's singing in blackberry.

Forbes’s Tree Crickets and Black-horned Tree Crickets (their look-alike cousins), are meadow dwellers and goldenrod is always popular with them. Both species are pleased to have a little blackberry as well. However, Four-spotted Tree Crickets – also meadow residents –have a definitely preference for asters, Queen Anne’s lace. and grasses with stems that make stable singing perches. 

 

Black-horned Tree Cricket on a blackberry leaf. Look closely - it appears that he may have goldenrod pollen on his legs and antennae from walking through the goldenrod in his cage.

Jumping Bush Crickets live in trees and bushes, where they're usually easy to hear, difficult to see, and challenging to catch. I did manage to find one singing under a flaking piece of sycamore bark and brought him home. Would he be interested in goldenrod or asters? 

Of course not! I assembled a collection of sticks for him to climb on and added cuttings from blackberry and our ubiquitous invasive buckthorn. He did indeed eat the buckthorn leaves, and his preferred list also included cherry and viburnum. I don’t think he ate any blackberry, but I kept a little in his cage as a place to hide when he wanted some privacy. His cheerful-sounding chirps were quite loud for a small house, but we greatly enjoyed him.

Jumping Bush Cricket in a mesh cage with blackberry and shrub cuttings and sticks on which to climb.
 

Lisa Rainsong · Jumping Bush Cricket

 

Each of our two Black-legged Meadow Katydids had his own personal cattail seed head still on a portion of its stem. These katydids require somewhat tall, rather thick, round stems from which to sing, so I also provided a couple portions of cattail stems for singing perches. For an added wetland touch, each also had his own bulrush seed head as well. 

 

 In addition to singing from his cattail, he ate the seeds as well.

I mist everyone’s plant cuttings daily and monitor the water level. I've never had a cricket fall into the plant water and drown but using narrow-necked vases or iced tea bottles minimizes the risk, keeps that water from evaporating as quickly, and holds the plant stems upright.

Plant cuttings seldom last more than two or three days once the weather is cold and the heat is on. Finding green leaves in the late wall and early winter does become a challenge!

Check the vegetation daily...and change as needed.

 

Changing plant cuttings is a dangerous moment, as all these insects can jump out of their cages faster and farther than you would ever imagine possible. My experience has been that they're somewhat less adventurous as they become accustomed to the nightly routine, but one never knows when a cricket or katydid will become startled or simply adventurous. 

 

Be sure you know where the insect is before moving anything inside the cage and if he tends to jump, see if you can get him into a jar for a few minutes until you’re done.

I’ve written about trigs – the tiny, sword-tailed crickets – in numerous other posts and included photos of them in their tiny singing cages. They can escape from absolutely anything else, so don’t even bother with those little plastic insect carriers. Give them food and a leaf to hide under. I typically have Handsome Trigs here later in the fall, but this year I also had a Say’s Trig as well. They can be cared for similarly. 

Say's Trig and Handsome Trig

 

 

Handsome Trig. This little container has a diameter of about 4.5". There are also small caterpillar/butterfly mesh containers that would probably work well for trigs.

I must give credit where it is due. After weeks, the Say’s Trig jumped far out of his little singing cage and disappeared. He was tiny: ¼”  in size and coppery-brown. 

    Remember, Say's Trigs are only 1/4" in size and he was on a wood floor... 

I couldn’t find him and was about to give up hope when Nikos indicated the exact location of elusive, diminutive cricket. He didn't even try to catch or eat him, and soon the Say's Trig was safely in his little cage.

This brings us to food.

Crickets enjoy apple slices and some like a grape slice as well. The katydids, however, were especially enthusiastic about apples. I would occasionally have to move the Black-legged Meadow Katydid off his in order to replace it with a fresh slice. The Oblong-winged tore into his with intense focus. 

 

While the katydids and tree crickets sometimes sample grapes, it seems to be the ground crickets and especially Handsome Trigs who enjoy them the most.

Everyone would get a little lettuce as well, and they all had dry cricket food and water cubes at all times. One might not think that tree crickets would come down to the floor of the cages to eat these items, but in fact, many do.

Fresh produce is served as a produce-kabob: lettuce topped with apple and perhaps a grape slice. Because of the possibility of pesticide residue, these insects are only served organic produce. 

Crickets and katydids will sit on top of the apple. Sometimes I actually have to move them in order to change their produce!

 

Essential for both habitat and food are leaves, preferably from plants like those in which they’d been living earlier in the season. They will often eat the plant leaves I provide them for hiding and singing.

Crickets, katydids, and cats all seem to appreciate a little warm, late-season sun, so I lined everyone up along the dining room's south windows. Nikos placed himself right there with them. This is when he first realized that there were living entities in those cages!

 

It’s getting quieter now. The three Broad-winged Tree Crickets are still here, along with one Forbes’s Tree Cricket. They would have matured in early August for the Forbes's and mid-August for the Broad-winged. They've been singing in the wild and now here in the house for four months. Very few of my indoors singing insects make it to the end of December, but just maybe one will still sing up in the bedroom on New Year’s Eve.

Interestingly, we've noticed one unexpected song deterrent: the indoor and front porch little LED holiday lights we've hung in multiple places for the first in many years. Although these lights don't seem to us to be nearly as bright as indoor lamps or the usual porch light, the Broad-wingeds in particular will not sing when those lights are on. When I turn off the switch or unplug the chord, the crickets instantly begin singing!

I recorded the single remaining Forbes's Tree Cricket in a duet with the Broad-winged Tree Cricket who's been here the longest on the night of  of December 16th/17th. Their cages were outside the bedroom in the dark. It was snowing outside and the ground was white. You may therefore hear the furnace blower in the background and also a little crackling from their aging file/scraper instruments at the base of their aging wings. Even so, some of you may also notice the interval between their pitches is generally about a perfect 4th, which is also visible on the sonogram below.

 

Lisa Rainsong · Broad - Winged And Forbes's Tree Cricket Duet 12 - 16 - 20

Every year, I am thankful to have learned more about each species that spends time here and also about each one as an individual because - to my initial surprise - there are even behavioral differences among members of the same species. 

And as each one leaves the stage in the annual Orthopteran Farewell Symphony, I always thank him for his songs.

Lisa Rainsong · Black - Legged Meadow Katydid