So every so often, hubby would get a phone call in Canada from Austin. And we would know, "Oh, the crickets must be flying." The phone call would come in the fall after the break in the heat and the return of fall rains.
But oh no! This year is different. The cricket explosion is now. People are grossed out and feeling icky about bugs.
http://austin.culturemap.com/...
http://news.yahoo.com/...
But this cricket is Gryllus texensis and it has a wonderful story. There is a fly that parasitizes this cricket. This pressure from a predator has influenced the evolution of this cricket producing calling males and satellite males.
More over the orange squiggle.
The cricket is Gryllus texensis. It is also know as the Texas field cricket but occcurs over a wide range in the southwest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
The fly is Ormia ocharacea
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
When we discovered this fly and it's relationship to the cricket, it was the first example of a predator finding it's prey by using the prey's sexual signal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Think about that. The signal for calling, "Hey baby, let's hook up!" gets you killed.
So some males just hang out near a calling male and mates with the females that fly into the calling male. So there is an advantage to not calling. But without somebody calling the females don't know where the males are. This means there are two strategies for finding mates.
Quick evolution leads to quiet crickets
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/...
This pressure has lead to other discoveries.
New hearing aid technology!!!
CU neuroscientists: Super fly lends an ear to bio-inspired hearing aids
http://www.news.cornell.edu/...