Crickets and Grasshoppers: What’s the difference?

Anytime you venture outdoors in the spring, summer, and fall seasons, you’re bound to see a certain type of insect hopping around your yard. Crickets and grasshoppers will greet you as you walk through the summer grass, and the air will be filled with the sound of insects of all types.

Probably some of the most prominent residents will be crickets and grasshoppers, members of the Caelifera family. There are at least 11,000 recognized grasshopper species in the world and only about 900 cricket species.

A Deeper Look Into Crickets and Grasshoppers

It’s hard to see the differences between crickets and grasshoppers from afar. Both look so much alike in their various shades of brown. Black and green are the colors that stand out when comparing these two insects. Grasshoppers are larger than crickets and can be brown or green. If you see one that is black, that is an indicator that it is actually a cricket.

While many cricket species can fly, some can’t. On the other hand, most grasshopper species have wings and are skilled flyers. Both have strong back legs they use for jumping and communication. These hoppers may have many things in common, but crickets and grasshoppers also have marked differences.

Cricket and Grasshoppers Bodies

Grasshoppers are at least 1-2 inches in length, with a South African native known as Tropidacris Latreille being one of the largest at 5 inches. South Africa is also home to the smallest type that grows to be less than an inch long. It’s known as Lithidium pusillium.

Most crickets average between .25-2 inches, and are usually a bit smaller than grasshoppers. The largest cricket species is the giant wētā. The giant wētā gets as big as four inches long and tops out at two ounces in weight. Because of its weight, etymologists believe that this species may be the world’s largest insect to date. The ground cricket is about 3/8 inches long and is believed to be the world’s tiniest cricket.

An insect’s body is divided into three sections: head, thorax, and abdomen, and the grasshopper’s body is the same. The head of a grasshopper holds extremely large compound eyes. These multi-faceted lenses allow it to see images and movement. Grasshoppers also have another set of eyes that are in front of their big compound eyes that are hard for humans to see. These small, “simple” eyes can only discern light and darkness.

A grasshopper’s antennae has important uses. Their antennae lets them have a sense of smell and detects temperature changes along with vibrations. These antennae are often called horns. Many people will use the term short-horned or long-horned to describe crickets and grasshoppers.

Crickets also have the same three body sections as well as simple and complicated eyes. However, their jointed antennas are usually longer than their bodies. Grasshopper antennae are noticeably shorter.

A set of three legs are on each side of a grasshopper’s body. One important feature is their hind legs, which are longer than the other legs and stronger to allow them to jump long distances. Many will be able to jump up to 30 inches!

If you are six feet tall and could do that, you could jump a mind-boggling distance of 90 feet in a single bound. Four hops and you would cover the length of a football field.

Crickets also have six legs, including their formidable hind jumping legs. Most species, including the common field cricket, can jump about three feet. This is a little farther than some grasshoppers can jump.

The majority of crickets and grasshoppers can fly with wings that are connected to the thorax. Both will use jumping and flying to find food and to escape danger.

Another hallmark of these athletes of the insect world is chirping, sometimes called “singing.” Male grasshoppers scrape their back legs against their wings to produce the chirping sound, while male crickets do so by rubbing their wings together. Both crickets and grasshoppers use chirping as a mating call to entice the females.

Crickets and Grasshoppers Behaviors

You’re more likely to see grasshoppers during the day since they usually rest at night. They spend their days hopping and flying around the area, looking for food. Grasshoppers are traditionally docile insects that don’t bother others unless they feel threatened. They prefer the outdoors and aren’t usually a problem in people’s homes. Since most sleep at night, they also do their traveling and chirping during the day. They can be loners, or they can swarm in destructive plagues totalling millions.

Conversely, most cricket species are nocturnal. Their love of chirping has been celebrated in rural American literature and art. The crooning species that most people recognize is the small, black field cricket. They are also called house crickets for their affinity for moving in with humans.

For the most part, jumping or flying away are the primary defenses for both crickets and grasshoppers. Almost anything with a mouth is capable of biting, including grasshoppers and crickets. Depending on the size and species, their small mouthpieces don’t have enough strength to break through human skin. Grasshoppers will often vomit a sticky, dark brown substance when threatened. It formed the prevalent myth that grasshoppers chew and spit tobacco juice. In some cases, a bite from either insect may cause mild stinging or a rash if you have a rare allergic reaction.

Crickets and Grasshoppers Diets

Crickets and grasshoppers eat a lot, with grasshoppers eating up to 17 times their weight in food a day. Although both crickets and grasshoppers are occasional omnivores, they prefer plants. They will devour leaves, stems, seeds, pods, or fruits. It’s fine out in the wild but can be devastating for your produce or flower gardens. They will also eat decaying leaf matter from the forest floor. If there aren’t enough plant food sources to go around, crickets and grasshoppers are just as satisfied to eat smaller live insects, dead ones, or decaying animal carcasses.

Crickets are attracted to sweet smells that send them jumping into people’s homes. They will also go digging into open or packaged food, causing contamination. Grasshoppers can be problematic in hay, straw, and grain storage in barns.

Life Cycles

The chirping crickets are made by male crickets as a way to attract fertile females. The mating season for crickets usually falls in the late spring and early summer. After the cricket’s mate, most female species will deposit about 50-100 eggs into the soil.

Crickets don’t tend to their eggs the way many other insects do. The fertilized eggs that survive will hatch in about two weeks. They hatch as miniature versions of adult crickets, just not fully formed as this is the nymph stage. Over 30 days, the independent nymphs will molt their endoskeletons ten times as they grow to adulthood. Mortality is high among the maturing crickets. Not only are they easy prey for larger animals and insects, but adult crickets often cannibalize them. If they survive the disease, malnutrition, and predators, then most crickets live an average of two months.

Grasshoppers also undergo incomplete metamorphosis. After they mate in late summer, females deposit about ten egg pods barely under the surface of dirt, sand, or decaying plant matter. Since each pod can contain between 30 and 300 eggs, the total can reach 3,000 eggs per female. The eggs incubate through fall and winter, and those that survive hatch in early spring. The offspring emerge as nymphs that look like smaller adults without wings. Depending on species and ideal weather conditions, nymphs molt about six times over 5-10 days.

By the end of a month, grasshopper offspring will be mature adults with fully grown wings. They will instinctively feed, protect themselves, and mate during late summer. The ones that survive all obstacles can live up to a year.

Habitats of Crickets & Grasshoppers

Crickets and grasshoppers are not social insects. They like to be on their own and will even fight each other if they are in the same space. They can be semi-social when the population is too large or during mating swarms.

Grasshoppers are constantly on the move in the daylight hours, and they don’t stay in one place long. Crickets come out at night for the most part, and you will find them in cool, dark places. They prefer to stay close to whatever safe spot they find, nesting in soil, under rocks, or in decaying plant matter.

The preference of dark, damp places for crickets is what allows them to seek out your home. They will hide in places such as basements or under sinks and don’t mind being indoors versus outdoors. As long as there is food, they are happy. Grasshoppers can still frequent basements or places where there is a food source, but their nature makes this rarer.

Damage from Crickets and Grasshoppers

Crickets and grasshoppers are the cause of agricultural and woodland damage. During years of higher infestations, USDA records show that grasshoppers can destroy as much as 25 percent of the country’s harvest. Swarms of crickets can also destroy fields of crops, causing millions of dollars in losses.

Short-horned grasshoppers are known as locusts and have a long history of destruction going back thousands of years. Millions of swarming locusts were responsible for famine and starvation in ancient times. They have been immortalized as one of the fabled Plagues of Ancient Egypt, and many people today think their long-note chirps sound like they are saying “pharaoh.”

Both marauding insects can also feel at home in your house. Crickets and grasshoppers will seek out any produce or vegetation in the house. A cricket’s powerful mouth can chew through plastic and cardboard to steal and contaminate your food. If that isn’t enough, crickets can also make holes in carpets and chew drapes, furniture, and clothing. The bottom line is that crickets can cause damage inside your home as well as be a risk to your health. They love digging through trash, which can be hazardous when they scurry along your food and other surfaces.

Getting Rid of Crickets and Grasshoppers

Crickets are popular in parts of China and Japan because tradition claims they are good luck. The crickets are often kept in small cages and were also used for entertainment in the past as a fighting sport. The animated cricket may have been charming in the classic children’s cartoon, but they aren’t so funny in real-life home infestations.

Your best tactic against invading crickets and grasshoppers is prevention and an inspection from our team at Kapture Pest Control. Grasshoppers can fly or hop through open windows, doors, or torn screens. Crickets can also burrow through cracks in your foundation. Keep untorn screens in windows and doors, and seal any gaps on your porch or foundation.

Since crickets are especially fond of human food, use these tips to keep them out:

• Keep your food in tightly sealed containers and immediately clean up spills.
• Be sure to clean dirty dishes and keep the trash can covered.
• Look for cracks that need to be sealed in your basement or cellar.
• Use a dehumidifier to minimize any humidity or dampness.

Bonus tip: Some people swear by setting small saucers of water and a little molasses to trap and drown crickets.

These are all good ideas that may help deter these pests, but they won’t help during an infestation. When crickets and grasshoppers begin chirping loudly throughout your home, you need an inspection from Kapture Pest Control.

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