Life as a Cricket - An Autobiography
When I entered this world I was but an egg, carefully place about 1/3rd of an inch under the ground surface for safe keeping. Being placed here by my mother prevented predators and the drying rays of the sun from making my life a short one, if I was in the wild. My environment was pleasantly warm and humid and in 15 days I hatched from my casing and crawled my way to the surface where I emerged as a tiny cricket, white in color and complete with 6 legs and two antennae. After a few hours in the air my exoskeleton hardened (I do not have a bone in my body) and I became dark in color. This allowed me to blend in with the soil so I could not be easily seen. My brothers, sisters, half siblings, cousins and a plethora of other distant relatives started emerging from the ground so I was among good company.
The place of my birth lacked two things I would need soon. Food and water. My antenna sensed there was some in the vicinity and I would have to go looking for it. I climbed out of the container, which until now was my total universe and fell to the paper the container was resting on and I went in search of food and water. Finding them I engorged myself with my first meal and crawled under the edge of the paper where it was much warmer.
After a few days of this existence suddenly the container of my birth, my water supply, and the paper I crawled over and under were taken away. My world was tipped to one corner and every last one of us was dumped into a new unsoiled world. Ah, Eden. Everything I could ask for. A pile of food, plenty of water, fantastic shelter to hide under, and the air temperature was perfect. All this food gave me the nourishment to grow but my exoskeleton does not expand. Then out of nowhere a split developed along my back side and I slipped out of my “skin” and found I had a new white exoskeleton that would expand until it hardened and turned brown after a few hours, like my former skin. This is known as molting and occurred a couple of times over the next 14 days. There is nourishment in my old skin so sometimes I ate the discarded skin. It contains minerals I need to grow a new skin under my current one.
After 14 days, again all the shelters, the water source, and paper were removed. This time everything including any uneaten food and our frass was dumped onto a platform in a new clean cage. This one had a two story area for me to hide in and a larger water supply. When we hit the platform, my reaction was to jump off the platform and into the living area. Some of my fellow crickets were buried under the frass and uneaten food but we are good at digging our way out of these situations and after a few hours everyone was off the platform enjoying our new living arrangement.
After 10 more days of eating, pooping, and molting, the living area had become quite trashed and was starting to smell. Once again everything was removed except for us crickets, loose food, frass, and discarded exoskeletons (we do not eat all of them). This time the box we were living in was turned on its side and many of us went scurrying over the edge of the box and fell into another completely emptied box. Some, that were not quite as daring, took their time and were assisted over the edge by our human caretaker. Still others chose to remain in the pile of frass and exoskeletons and had to be sorted out by the human taking care of us. Many of those were missing legs or had just molted or were about to molt and could not move. After all of us in the box were dumped into a clean home with fresh food and shelter and water.
Then one day my human caretaker dumped a few of us into an empty box and starting selectively picking out females. He spotted me and liked the size of my ovipositor and the fact that I was larger than many of my fellow crickets. He moved his hand toward me and I frantically jumped away and tried to blend in with the other crickets. But he was persistent and after a few more attempts to get me, I accidentally jumped right into his hand which he quickly closed up and placed me into another basically empty box that already contained a few other females he had selected. In all about 30 of us were chosen, along with 10 good looking immature male crickets. All of us had full use of our legs. If there was any problem with our mobility we were removed and replace by another. What did he have in mind for us?
We were placed in our own warm environment with everything we needed until most of us had molted and developed wings. Now our ovipositors were half as long as our bodies and the males started singing to us. We were transferred again to another clean container with food, water, a place to hide, plus something that was strange but yet familiar. I was drawn to it. After a courtship with a male who made a very attractive noise with his hind underwings (we lose our outer wings a few days after becoming adults), I climbed onto the new thing that had a material in it I could not resist and plunged my ovipositor into it. I deposited an egg. I deposit several eggs a day. Eat, drink, lay eggs, and listen to romantic background music. Life is good.
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