Where they Live

Field crickets, the familiar black or brownish crickets are often abundant in meadows and fields. Also in dwellings or in small clusters in the ground. Tree Crickets are more often heard then seen. Usually colored green these slender crickets live in shrubs and trees. Mole Crickets can burrow rapidly through moist soil. They also can live in caves, hollow logs, beneath stones, and other dark moist places. Grasshoppers are also part of this group. They often become very abundant, and migrate in tremendous swarms. Destroying nearly all plants in their path. They like to live in wet grassy areas. Locust also contribute to Orthoptera. Locust plagues have been recorded since the beginning of history and are still one of the world’s major insect problems. Cockroaches are in a similar group, the Blattodea. There are an estimated 3,000 cockroach species in the world. About 55 live in the U.S., and only 4 species are common household pets. German cockroaches or Croton bugs, are common in the U.S. especially in the northern states. They commonly enter the house in bags or boxes from grocery stores. They tend to cluster in warm moist places around hot water pipes. They stay hidden when they are not eating.  Crickets will eat holes in paper or in garments especially those soiled with perspiration. They also eat young roots and seedlings, peanuts, garden crops, grain, clothing, and sometimes other insects and even each other. Grasshoppers are a different story. They eat crops and destroy millions of dollars a year in them. Cockroaches are just a pest and they eat almost anything. Cockroaches feed on a great variety of foods, meats, cheeses, sweets, and starches(like the starch in clothing or in the glue like that in book bindings, and stamps.). When abundant they may also eat human hair, skin and nails. They secrete sticky, odorous fluid that may be lift on foods or materials.

Movement

Cockroaches move very swiftly. They have 6 legs with 3 joints, as muscles contract at the base of the body the legs move. This motion causes a roach to lurch forward in rapid motion. Crickets have wings so they may fly. The movement of the crickets aren’t the same as the grasshopper’s. The grasshopper is an insect that can leap about 20 times the length of its body. If a human being had the same leaping ability as the grasshopper they could jump at least 20 feet. Helpful things they do. In Russia roaches have been regarded as an antidote for dropsy. Also in Southeast Asia, and China the bits of meat plucked from around the legs of boiled roaches is considered a delicacy. I 1968, 71% of more than 700 U.S. allergy patients injected with an experimental roach extract reported on easing of their symptoms. Roaches are ideal lab animals also. They are easy to care for, and but don’t bite or sting. Roaches have been implicated as disease vectors, but this has never been proven. They eat almost anything because of a wide variety of bacteria and protozoans in their gut. They help in rapid decomposition of forest litter, and animal fecal matter. We cope with poison baits, insecticides, dusts, and sprays. Other ways we can cope with common household things ar orange, and lemon peels. This instantly rill imported fire ants, house flies, stable flies, and ext. Harmful Members of Orthoptera cause lots of crop damage. Plagues of locusts occur in countless millions. When they are finished eating in one place they move on not leaving a green stem in the field. The term locust designates grasshoppers that migrate. Grasshoppers have caused more direct crop loss that any other insect. From 1925 to 1949 they damaged more than half a billion dollars worth of damage to crops. In 23 states in the western U.S. grasshoppers are considered to be among our most serious insect pests. Millions of dollars are spent in an attempt to control them. Millions of people around the word have died of starvation. In the U.S. the problem is serious, but is small compared with other areas. The Middle East and areas adjacent to it are usually the hardest to hit. Cockroaches, also a common pest, don’t bite but contaminate food. The roaches carry diseases, and damage book bindings. They will eat almost anything.

Sound/Communication

Grasshoppers are well known for their sounds. These are produced by rubbing their hind legs against the fore wings. The inner side of each hind leg has a ridge with a row of small pegs. When this ridge is rubbed against the gardened vein of the fore wing an audible vibration is produced. Both pitch, sound, and rhythm of stridulation vary according to species. In almost all species the sound production is limited to males. This serves to attract to females and possibly to help identify members of the same species. Hearing organs are located on either side of the abdominal segment. Males produce sound by rubbing a groove niche on the underside of one front wing against the sharp edge of another sharp wing(breeding session). Males attract females with this call.

Reproduction/Life cycle

The male cockroach is a very active breeder during his life, while the female only breeds once. He first starts by secreting a substance underneath his wings. When he calls out to a female she mounts him and starts to consume to substance. This is when to male and female join. They will stay together for a couple of days before disengaging. The female will keep the sperm in her body for months on end sometimes. When she fertilizes her eggs so begins to have and egg sac start to some out from her backend. After the sac has fallen off she just leaves it. After a couple of days the small larva will start to suck up air this expanding themselves, and the egg case will start to tear. Once out the little cockroaches look like small transparent roaches. Some will be eaten by predators, while some will be eaten even by their own kind. But since roaches almost always are mating this really doesn’t hinder their young. Soon the roach will reach maturity and the process will start all over again. Article.(National Geographic) The praying mantis eats nothing but live food, mostly insects. Prey is taken only from flowers, leafage, twigs, bark, or the ground. Never while the potential victim is in flight. Many species have wings but seldom use them. A mantis’s catching of prey is at times larger than the mantis itself. Its severed by surprising small mouth parts, similar to those of its cockroach ancestors. Over millions of years of evolutionary time, mantises have occupied all accessible regions that may have a suitable climate. They abound especially in tropical and subtropical areas and have adapted by protective color and form to a variety of habitats. If danger is imminent, a mantis may explode into action, scurrying with crablike speed upward and around to the opposite tree. All and all mantises are very extraordinary creatures just like the rest of the group Orthoptera.