''Acheta domesticus'', commonly called the house cricket, is a

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...

most likely native to

Southwestern Asia Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academics, UN bodies and other institutions. It is almost entirely a part of the Middle East, and includes ...

, but between 1950 and 2000 it became the standard

feeder insect Live food is living animals used as food for other carnivorous or omnivorous animals kept in captivity; in other words, small preys (such as insects, small fish or rodents) fed alive to larger predators kept either in a zoo or as a pet. Live f ...

for the pet and research industries and spread worldwide. They can be kept as pets themselves, as this has been the case in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

and

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

Description

The house cricket is typically gray or brownish in color, growing to in length. Males and females look similar, but females will have a needle from the rear, around long. The

ovipositor The ovipositor is a tube-like organ used by some animals, especially insects, for the laying of eggs. In insects, an ovipositor consists of a maximum of three pairs of appendages. The details and morphology of the ovipositor vary, but typical ...

is brown-black, and is surrounded by two appendages. On males, the cerci are also more prominent and house crickets are also omnivores.

Diet

The house cricket is an

omnivore An omnivore () is an animal that has the ability to eat and survive on both plant and animal matter. Obtaining energy and nutrients from plant and animal matter, omnivores digest carbohydrates, protein, fat, and fiber, and metabolize the nu ...

that eats a range of plant and animal matter. Crickets in the wild consume flowers, seeds, leaves, fruits, grasses and other insects (including dead members of their own species). Crickets in captivity will accept fruits (e.g.

apples An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...

, oranges,

bananas A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguis ...

), vegetables (e.g.

potatoes The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Wild potato species can be found from the southern United ...

carrots The carrot (''Daucus carota'' subsp. ''sativus'') is a root vegetable, typically orange in color, though purple, black, red, white, and yellow cultivars exist, all of which are domesticated forms of the wild carrot, ''Daucus carota'', nati ...

, squash, leafy vegetables), grains (e.g.

oatmeal Oatmeal is a preparation of oats that have been de-husked, steamed, and flattened, or a coarse flour of hulled oat grains (groats) that have either been milled (ground) or steel-cut. Ground oats are also called white oats. Steel-cut oats a ...

cornmeal Cornmeal is a meal (coarse flour) or a cell membrane ground from dried corn. It is a common staple food, and is ground to coarse, medium, and fine consistencies, but not as fine as wheat flour can be.Herbst, Sharon, ''Food Lover's Companion'', ...

, cooked

corncobs Corn on the cob is a culinary term for a cooked ear of sweet corn (maize) eaten directly off the cob. The ear is picked while the endosperm is in the "milk stage" so that the kernels are still tender. Ears of corn are steamed, boiled, or gri ...

alfalfa Alfalfa () (''Medicago sativa''), also called lucerne, is a perennial flowering plant in the legume family Fabaceae. It is cultivated as an important forage crop in many countries around the world. It is used for grazing, hay, and silage, as ...

wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...

germ,

rice cereal Rice cereal is the name commonly given to industrially manufactured baby food based on rice. It is also commonly used in Rice Krispy treats. Its ingredient list is not well defined and depends on the manufacturer. It has been recommended by pe ...

), various pet foods and commercial cricket food.

Life cycle

House crickets take two to three months to complete their life cycle at . They have no special overwintering stage, but can survive cold weather in and around buildings, and in dumps where heat from fermentation may sustain them. Eggs are deposited in whatever damp substrate is available. Juveniles resemble the adults except for being smaller and wingless.

Diseases

The house cricket was essentially eliminated from the cricket-breeding industries of North America and Europe by the appearance of cricket paralysis virus which spread rapidly in Europe in 2002 and then in the United States in 2010. The virus is extremely lethal to this species of cricket and a few others, and left many hobbyists and researchers without adequate feeder insects. It has been replaced by the

Jamaican field cricket ''Gryllus assimilis'', commonly known as the Jamaican field cricket and sometimes referred to as the silent cricket (a misnomer) among other names, is one of many cricket species known as a field cricket. Its natural habitats are the West Indies ...

, which is resistant to cricket paralysis virus and has many of the desirable features of the house cricket.

As food

The house cricket is an edible insect. It is farmed in South-East Asia and parts of Europe and North America for human consumption. In Asia, it is said to become more popular than many native cricket species due to what consumers claimed was their superior taste and texture. Dry-roasting is common and is considered the most nutritious method of preparing them, though they are often sold deep-fried as well. Farmed house crickets are mostly freeze-dried and often processed into a powder known as cricket flour. In Europe, the house cricket is officially approved for use in food products in

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

(since 2017) and in the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...

member states (since 2022). In the EU, the house cricket was approved as novel food in frozen, dried and powdered forms with the ''Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/188 of 10 February 2022''. Before that, the

European Food Safety Authority The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is the agency of the European Union (EU) that provides independent scientific advice and communicates on existing and emerging risks associated with the food chain. EFSA was established in February 2002, ...

had published a safety assessment on August 17, 2021, stating that frozen and dried formulations from whole house crickets are safe for consumption.

Nutritional value

House crickets are an incomplete protein source, deficient in tryptophan and lysine. They contain both omega-3 and

omega-6 fatty acid Omega-6 fatty acids (also referred to as ω-6 fatty acids or ''n''-6 fatty acids) are a family of polyunsaturated fatty acids that have in common a final carbon-carbon double bond in the ''n''-6 position, that is, the sixth bond, counting from ...

References

External links

Sound recordings of ''Achetus domesticus'' at BioAcoustica
{{- Gryllinae Orthoptera of Europe Insects described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Edible insects Insects as feed Pet foods