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Concept
House cricket
Summary
Acheta domesticus, commonly called the house cricket, is a cricket most likely native to Southwestern Asia, 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 and Japan.
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 is brown-black, and is surrounded by two appendages. On males, the cerci are also more prominent and house crickets are also omnivores.
The house cricket is an omnivore 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. apples, oranges, bananas), vegetables (e.g. potatoes, carrots, squash, leafy vegetables), grains (e.g. oatmeal, cornmeal, cooked corncobs, alfalfa, wheat germ, rice cereal), various pet foods and commercial cricket food.
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.
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 It has been replaced by the Jamaican field cricket, which is resistant to cricket paralysis virus and has many of the desirable features of the house cricket.
The house cricket is an edible insect.
Official source
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