Acheta domesticus

Weissman, David B., Gray, David A., Pham, Hanh Thi & Tijssen, Peter, 2012, Billions and billions sold: Pet-feeder crickets (Orthoptera: Gryllidae), commercial cricket farms, an epizootic densovirus, and government regulations make for a potential disaster, Zootaxa 3504, pp. 67-88 : 69

Acheta domesticus

( Fig. 1 )

Prior to 1977 cricket breeders in both the USA and Europe almost exclusively raised the (European) house cricket, A. domesticus , already a cosmopolitan species ( Weissman & Rentz 1977; Weissman et al. 1980; Walker 2012). Starting in Europe in 1977 (Szelei et al. 2011) and North America in 1988 ( Styer & Hamm 1991), production facilities were infected by AdDNV, although severe epizootics were not apparent in North America until 2009/ 2010 (Liu et al. 2011). Certain USA breeders, such as Armstrong’s Cricket Farm (http:// www.armstrongcrickets.com/), through a strict program of “reverse” isolation, continue to successively raise A. domesticus because their facilities have not been infected (see Table 2 below and Discussion), but they are the exception (C. Ghann, pers. comm. to DBW, September, 2011).

Although A. domesticus has been feral in the USA for years ( Weissman & Rentz 1977), recent local adaptation has been observed (DBW, unpublished) in many populations on two fronts: 1) twenty years ago, adult male field calling songs were quiet and intermittent and were easily identified without having to capture the singing male. In the last five years, chirp in A. domesticus have become more regular and louder and have resulted in increased collecting efforts to confirm identification since singing males can sound like a Gryllus species, and 2) populations have impacted native Gryllus species, for example at Furnace Creek, Death Valley National Park, California (DBW, unpublished) where in the early 1980s, A. domesticus was rare and a native Gryllus was common. Repeat collecting at Furnace Creek over the years, most recently in 2003, yielded hundreds of Acheta and only two native Gryllus individuals. Elsewhere, A. domesticus can be found away from human habitation in natural USA habitats ( Weissman & Rentz 1977).

Figures

FIGURE 1. Gryllodes sigillatus (adult male left) and Acheta domesticus (adult male right). Both species are usually light brown / tan in color with a black bar between the eyes. Adults of both sexes of G. sigillatus always have short tegmina (top wings) covering about half of the abdomen. Adults of both sexes of A. domesticus have longer tegmina reaching near tip of abdomen and hind (bottom) wings (see arrows) that extend beyond tip of abdomen. In culture, some adults of the latter species shed their hind wings (Walker 1977). Such an occurrence can be confirmed by the absence of any hind wing or the presence of just a stump.