What Do Crickets Eat

Summary: Are you hearing that lone cricket somewhere in your house and you are worried about finding damages? You need to know the answer to what do crickets eat. Find it here.

Crickets are unusual creatures that will eat a variety of things, some traditional, some not so traditional including dead or decaying insects, plant matter, and fungi. If they cannot find anything to eat, they eat each other. Not a happy thought, but it saves time and energy. No going hunting. Just find your nearest relative and chow down. Keeping this in mind, my first suggestion is to sweep up crickets you have killed during your pest management process.

Crickets have palps which are sensory appendages located near the mouth of many invertebrate animals, used to manipulate food before it is eaten. Sort of like having an extra pair of hands attached to your face. Very helpful, especially if you like to play video games and eat at the same time. Anyway, the palps are elongated and segmented parts of the mouth. Once the food finds its way into their mouths, the crickets chew and swallow.

So, now that you know how crickets handle their food, let's find out what's on the menu. Cricket diets go way beyond plant matter and other insects. This is why you need to go into hunting-mode when you hear one inside your home. They will dine on leather, certain types of cloth, and paper. Your clothing is fair game, as well, including items made of silk, wool, cotton, rayon, fur and almost any kind of fabric known to man. Any food sitting out is also fair game because they will eat meat, fruits, and vegetables if they can access it.

Identifying the species of cricket on your property will help you determine their food source. House crickets, for example, consume fruits and vegetables, meat, cereal, and fabrics. This species especially loves eating wet fabrics.
Field crickets eat, among other things, rubber and plastic. Look for this type of cricket around dumpsters or large garbage cans outside. Field crickets cannot reproduce indoors, so they are less likely to be seen there.

Snowy tree crickets enjoy many types of fruits, including cherries, berries, and peaches. This species lays its eggs in fruit bushes so that their young have a multitude of food available to them.

Northern mole crickets eat tree roots and tubers. They lay their eggs in the soil, and pretty much stay there for most of their adult lives because of their food supply.

Camel crickets eat mostly paper products and decaying plant material. Keep piles of leaves away from the side of your house to eliminate their habitate.

To keep crickets away from your home try to eliminate their food sources. For example, make sure to throw out your trash regularly. Seems logical, but some people collect the strangest things and “trash” means more than what you collect in the kitchen. If you fall into the category of box savers, newspaper savers and stuff like that, you are inviting crickets. Clutter creates living environments for crickets. Plus, there is no

Damage to wool

telling how many different types of insects may be hiding in your trash.

I'm not suggesting you throw out stored clothing made of fabrics that crickets will eat, but here are some tips to keep in mind concerning your clothing.

• Crickets tend to feed on fabrics that have perspiration or food stains on them. (Fabrics that are unstained are rarely eaten by crickets.) Make sure to wash out stains immediately after they occur.

• Look for tiny holes on your fabrics, especially if they have not been cleaned in awhile.

• Inspect for crickets. This may be hard to do because the bugs will hide in fabric. One trick that might help is to lay out a big white sheet on the floor, and shake out your damaged clothes above the sheet. Any crickets that are hiding will fall onto the sheet. You can the n dispose of the pests at your leisure.

• I always keep glue traps around the perimeter of my basement and I never fail to capture insects. They come in through the small holes at the edges of the garage door and find their way into the main basement under the door threshold. No matter how hard I try to seal up the space under the door, crickets and other insects always find their way in.

• Apply a granular insecticide like Talstar PL along exterior perimeter foundation walls.

• If your clothes have signs of damage from crickets, but they can still be worn, take them to a dry cleaning store. This will eliminate the bugs and any eggs they may have laid.

• Cedar closets act as repellants against bugs, though it is not a permanent solution. Nuvan ProStrips release a vapor, too, but this vapor kills insects. The strips can only be used in closets or cupboards where humans won't be exposed.

Now that you understand what crickets eat you know what steps you must take when you hear their chirps inside the house. Ignore them and I promise you will come to find holes in your favorite jacket at that exact moment when you most wanted to wear it.

For more cricket articles please click here .