The domestic cricket

In Quebec, there are three species of crickets. Two of the genus Gryllus, and one of the genus Bought

How do I recognize cricket? How and where does it reproduce? What are his habits? How can we stop him from coming to assault us? An informative article about your exterminator in Montreal

Crickets, when numerous, can devour fabrics, linens and harm our farms.

Their singing can also annoy when a colony sets up.

What is their physical appearance?

Insects of the family of orthopters of black or brown color, crickets are more than 13 mm long, sometimes reaching 2 cm. Their quasi-spherical head is composed of two eyes and long antennae. Crickets also have shredder-like mouth parts with powerful mandibles. At the end of their abdomen are two sensory filaments called hoops.

The thorax has two pairs of very ribbed wings and three pairs of legs:

• The strong forelegious wings protect the membrane hind wings.
• As for the legs, the highly developed hind legs contain elastin, a substance that further helps these song-growing insects to leap over long distances.

The female is recognized by her ovipositeur, a long cylindrical egg-laying organ located between the two hoops that the male does not possess.

Female grill (arrow on ovipositeur)

• The gryllus or autumn cricket of the species: pennsylvaticus is 18mm without the hoops at the tip of the abdomen. It is found all over Quebec.
• Cricket dug Gen: Gryllus is part of the species: veletis A. and B.
  Its common name is the Spring Grill. It measures about 18mm (without the hoops at the tip of the abdomen). It can be found in the Parc Nature de Laval or in Lachute, for example. It stands in the rock walls. He stops singing if he feels threatened. It only takes a cavity of about 3 cm by 1 cm to hide and elect home.

 

Life cycle of these crickets invasive by their noise

3 phases mark the reproduction of crickets:

Phase^1: Fertilization

Cricket breeding starts in the spring and lasts all summer. Crickets mate after a sexual parade. After mating, the male places a whitish gelatinous envelope under the female’s genital opening.

In a matter of seconds, the female tears this envelope and releases the sperm. They then take the direction of its reproductive organs.

Phase^2: Egg laying

The female lays eggs a few days after mating. After sinking her ovipositeur into a moist soil, she buries her eggs. Note that the female lays many times during the hot season, producing a hundred eggs which the tenants will soon infestyou .

Phase^3: The Birth of Cricket

The duration of egg incubation varies depending on the species and conditions of the environment. At a temperature of 30oC, it usually takes 9 to 12 days for crickets to hatch.

These young crickets are similar to adults, but tiny and wingless. They are 1mm long.

Cricket is a hemimetole, in other words an insect with incomplete metamorphosis. In order to reach the adult stage, where they have all their wings as well as usable reproductive organs, the young crickets will have to moult several times in a row during the next 2 months.

Once they are adults, crickets have a lifespan of about two months.

Is infestation possible in Quebec?

Cricket lives in all human constructions, including your homes. It lives mainly during the day to enjoy the heat. It is also very active at the beginning and end of the night.

It feeds, among other things, on:

• Seeds
• Fruit
• Leaves
• dead or living insects,
• food debris,
• Peelings
• cooked meats,
• baked goods.

To survive, he must spend the winter indoors. You will find it in heating pipes, behind heaters and radiators, but also in bakeries.

When it’s hot, he likes to be outside. There, he frequents mostly:

• Dumps,
• the piles of rubbish,
• The fields,
• roadsides,
• land near the houses.

Cricket emits, especially in the evening and at night, a shrill friction called stridulation. To stridule, crickets lift their upper wings at an angle of about 45 degrees and rub the inner edges of these wings very quickly against each other.

Crickets have a very varied melodic repertoire, this allows them to:

• delimiting their territory,
• attracting females for mating,
• remove other males,
• establish the superiority of the dominant male.

The invasion of crickets is only damaging if they are in large numbers. There, they can destroy our fabrics and our clothes. In Quebec, we do not know the swarms of grasshoppers as in Australia.

In addition, they can harm farms. Remember, they feed, among other things, on the roots and shoots of new plants.

Avoiding a cricket epidemic

Here are some tips to keep crickets from rushing to your home:

• Keep your doors and windows closed,
• Plug the cracks,
• Clean your home of organic waste,
• At nightfall, reduce the lighting. Or place low-energy insect repellents. They are specially designed not to attract insects to your home.
• Seal your garbage cans. The putrid smell of garbage attracts crickets. In doing so, you prevent these oppressors from entering and reproducing.
• Make traps to capture them: take small containers. Fill them with sweet vinegar, beer, or a mixture of molasses and vanilla essence or lemon juice with water.

Crickets, attracted by these liquids, will drown there. All you have to do is throw away their dead bodies.

You can also use sticky traps. They are sold in hardware stores. Put some behind your fridge and in the corners of the rooms.

Your exterminator has the solutions

To get rid of this annoyinginsect, the exterminator will proceed as follows:

• Extermination by biodegradable products, preferably spray insecticides: the exterminator will spray them in the frames of windows and doors, dark places of the house, etc. It will also use boric acid.
• Egg removal: The exterminator uses a vacuum cleaner with a filter. These vacuum cleaners have a special system that removes eggs from carpets or any other place.
• The destruction of crickets by pruning the plants of the garden: since crickets build their nests, among other things, in grasses and other plants, the exterminator will mow the lawn.

It will also cut bushy plants, prune ivy or any other climbing plant. He will dispose of piles of wood, mulch and compost away from the house. It will remove all leaves and other plant debris that is in the pipes and gutters.

Warning: not all exterminators effectively destroy crickets. The effective exterminator, the true professional is recognized as follows:

• He has a permit from the Quebec Ministry of Sustainable Development with the inscription C5: Extermination. For you, that means removing crickets in compliance with Environment Canada’s regulations on people and pets.
• He works methodwise while focusing on professionalism and quality:
• It uses certified certified technicians in extermination,
• It moves quickly to the site of theinfestation to identify the type of parasite, the intensity of theattack and its source,
• It offers appropriate treatment for the aggression of crickets,
• It trains, informs and sensitizes the occupants of the dwellings to the precautions to be taken to avoid an invasion of crickets.
• He is discreet in his interventions. For example, it uses unidentified vehicles.
• It offers you a written guarantee against any damage that could result from the means used for the extermination and on the effectiveness of its treatment against the aggression against you.

That’s the gist of what you need to know. Are you the victim of a cricket infestation? How did you recognize their presence in your home? How did you end up with them? Tell us about your experience in the comments below.