Crickets

What do you know about crickets?
Crickets, family Gryllidae (also known as "true crickets"), are insects somewhat related to grasshoppers and more closely related to katydids or bush crickets (order Orthoptera). They have somewhat flattened bodies and long antennae.
Crickets are known for their chirp (which only male crickets can do; male wings have ridges that act like a "comb and file" instrument). The left forewing has a rib (modified vein) which bears a number of minute teeth. They chirp by rubbing their left forewing against the hind edge of the right forewing. This sound producing action is called "stridulation" and the song is species-specific. There are two types of cricket songs: a calling song and a courting song. The calling song attracts females and repels other males, and is fairly loud. The courting song is used when a female cricket is near, and is a very quiet song. Female crickets have a long needlelike egg-laying organ (ovipositor).
Crickets chirp at different rates depending both on their species and the temperature of their environment. Most species chirp at higher rates the higher the temperature is (approx. 60 chirps a minute at 13ºC in one common species; each species has its own rate). The relationship between temperature and the rate of chirping is known as Dolbear's Law.
Dolbear's Law states the relationship between the ambient temperature and the rate at which crickets chirp. It was formulated by Amos Dolbear and published in 1897 in an article called "The Cricket as a Thermometer". Dolbear expressed the relationship as the following formula which provides a way to estimate the temperature TF in degrees Fahrenheit from the number of chirps per minute N:
This formula is accurate to within a degree or so when applied to the chirping of the snowy tree cricket. Reformulated to give the temperature in degrees Celsius, it is:
The above formulae are expressed in terms of integers in order to make them easier to remember - they aren't intended to be exact. The chirping of the more common field cricket is not as reliably correlated to temperature - its chirping rate varies depending on other factors such as age and mating success.
Worldwide there are about 900 known species of crickets. Crickets tend to be nocturnal and are often confused with grasshoppers, which are related, but not the same, because they have a similar body structure including jumping hind legs.
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