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

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

most likely native to

Southwestern Asia West Asia (also called Western Asia or Southwest Asia) is the westernmost region of Asia. As defined by most academics, UN bodies and other institutions, the subregion consists of Anatolia, the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Mesopotamia, the Armenia ...

, but between 1950 and 2000 it became the standard feeder insect 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. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

and

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

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 brown-black, needle-like

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 typica ...

extending from the center rear, approximately the same length as the cerci, the paired

appendages An appendage (or outgrowth) is an external body part or natural prolongation that protrudes from an organism's body such as an arm or a leg. Protrusions from single-celled bacteria and archaea are known as cell-surface appendages or surface app ...

towards the rear-most segment of the cricket. On males, the cerci are more prominent.

Diet

The house cricket is an

omnivore An omnivore () is an animal that regularly consumes significant quantities of both plant and animal matter. Obtaining energy and nutrients from plant and animal matter, omnivores digest carbohydrates, protein, fat, and fiber, and metabolize t ...

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

apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

oranges The orange, also called sweet orange to distinguish it from the bitter orange (''Citrus × aurantium''), is the fruit of a tree in the family Rutaceae. Botanically, this is the hybrid ''Citrus'' × ''sinensis'', between the pomelo (''Citrus m ...

banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large treelike herbaceous flowering plants in the genus '' Musa''. In some countries, cooking bananas are called plantains, distinguishing the ...

s), vegetables (e.g.

potato The potato () is a starchy tuberous vegetable native to the Americas that is consumed as a staple food in many parts of the world. Potatoes are underground stem tubers of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'', a perennial in the nightshade famil ...

es,

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

squash Squash most often refers to: * Squash (sport), the high-speed racquet sport also known as squash racquets * Squash (plant), the fruit of vines of the genus ''Cucurbita'' Squash may also refer to: Sports * Squash (professional wrestling), an extr ...

leafy vegetables Leaf vegetables, also called leafy greens, vegetable greens, or simply greens, are plant leaves eaten as a vegetable, sometimes accompanied by their petioles and shoots, if tender. Leaf vegetables eaten raw in a salad can be called salad gree ...

), grains (e.g.

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

cornmeal Maize meal is a meal (coarse flour) ground from dried maize. It is a common staple food and is ground to coarse, medium, and fine consistencies, but it is not as fine as wheat flour can be.Herbst, Sharon, ''Food Lover's Companion'', Third Editi ...

, cooked

corncob A corncob, also called corn cob or cob of corn, is the hard core of an ear of maize, bearing the kernels, made up of the chaff, woody ring, and pith. Corncobs contain mainly cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. However, during several instance ...

alfalfa Alfalfa () (''Medicago sativa''), also called lucerne, is a perennial plant, 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, ...

wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...

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 pedi ...

), various

pet food Pet food is animal feed intended for consumption by pets. Typically sold in pet stores and supermarkets, it is usually specific to the type of animal, such as dog food or cat food. Most meat used for animals is a byproduct of the human food indus ...

s 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 moist 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 Cricket paralysis virus (CrPV) is a paralytic disease affecting crickets. It was initially discovered in Australian field crickets ('' Teleogryllus commodus'' and '' Teleogryllus oceanicus'') by Carl Reinganum and his colleagues at the Victorian P ...

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 Deep frying (also referred to as deep fat frying) is a cooking method in which food is submerged in hot fat, traditionally lard but today most commonly oil, as opposed to the shallow frying used in conventional frying done in a frying pan. N ...

as well. Farmed house crickets are mostly freeze-dried and often processed into a powder known as

cricket flour Cricket flour (or cricket powder) is a protein-rich powder made from crickets, using various processes. Cricket flour differs from true flours made from grains by being composed mainly of protein rather than starches and dietary fiber. Nutrition ...

. In Europe, the house cricket is officially approved for use in food products in

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

(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 Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

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 Omega−3 fatty acids, also called omega−3 oils, ω−3 fatty acids or ''n''−3 fatty acids, are polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) characterized by the presence of a double bond three atoms away from the terminal methyl group in their ...

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 (PUFA) that share a final carbon-carbon double bond in the ''n''−6 position, that is, the sixth bond, counti ...

References

External links

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