# Anyone ever attmepted to interbreed house crickets with field crickets?



## bugmankeith (Aug 3, 2010)

Now is the time when Field crickets are mature, so I decided to put a male field cricket in with a bunch of virgin female house crickets, and then a male house cricket with 2 virgin female field crickets, whom I caught as last instar before molting to adult. I lined the 2 tanks with soil, food, and paper towel rolls.

The male field cricket was highly aggressive to the house females, trying to bite their legs off, so I let him and the females go outside. However, the male house cricket was having some luck with the field females. At first they tried to kick him away, but within a few hours I witnessed him mate with a female and saw the sperm transfer! I waited to make sure it was not aborted, and it was not.

I then released the non mated field female, and house male, and kept the mated field female for a week since at first she would not lay her eggs. Finally she layed the eggs, and I let her go after a while back outside.

I waited a few weeks but nothing came of the eggs, but my soil had dried out a bit so mabye it was my error?


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## super-pede (Aug 3, 2010)

This sounds super interesting.Those field crickets are beefy little suckers.

Reactions: Agree 1


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## bugmankeith (Aug 3, 2010)

Those field crickets fly very well too, which is surprising because they are so bulky.


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## ZergFront (Aug 3, 2010)

I've never tried that, but that's because I've had only 2 WC field crickets to my 2000+ purchased "domestic" crickets and the thought never occurred. 

 I kept a little field cricket in an ornate, wooden box with screen I called my lucky cricket. He only lived 4 days.. guess I didn't give HIM any luck.


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## Obelisk (Aug 3, 2010)

By field cricket, do you mean the large black ones? I ask because I've read that those are much more willing to bite than the brown crickets are. That would make it a pain to collect them by hand when it's feeding time.


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## Versi*JP*Color (Aug 3, 2010)

I know I'm trying this first thing tommorrow


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## bugmankeith (Aug 4, 2010)

Yeah the ones that are black and bite you, yup. Hey, some domestic male crickets have bitten me, they can hurt too!

I was just curious about interbreeding because I assume the result will be a meatier cricket that will be more disease resistant, which would be helpful.

Reactions: Like 1


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## Obelisk (Aug 4, 2010)

I've actually never been bitten by the brown ones, though maybe it's because I'm a little more careful when grabbing them than most keepers are. 

In any case, it sounds like a great experiment. The field cricks are the species that they use for can-o-crickets (which I used to feed to my pacman frogs). They're definitely meatier. As far as the biting thing, I guess one could use forceps instead.


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## Travis K (Aug 4, 2010)

Why would you bother letting them go after you mated them?

Reactions: Agree 2


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## Scorpendra (Aug 4, 2010)

They're not in the same genus, so I'd actually be pretty surprised if it worked.


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## Crysta (Aug 4, 2010)

to not confuse babies? i dunno.
But i would have kept the male cricket and that female cricket in the enclosure...so you can have hundreds! lol

edit
this reminds me
I let a bunch of petstore crickets outside once (when I had my bearded dragon) then a few months later I started seeing lightish/darkish crickets jumping around.

And now a few years later, the whole population of field crickets have disapeared in my area...my neibores, and niebore niebores and down by the river...
i dont think it was because I released those guys, but maybe.
I only found 1 young field cricket (normal black colored) in the past 4 years.
and that was yesterday.

Reactions: Like 1


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## bugmankeith (Aug 4, 2010)

Travis K said:


> Why would you bother letting them go after you mated them?


I let the crickets go that didn't mate, The field crickets still were in mating season. The female that did mate I kept until she laid eggs.


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## Toirtis (Aug 4, 2010)

Scorpendra said:


> They're not in the same genus, so I'd actually be pretty surprised if it worked.


Precisely....it is highly unlikely.


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## bugmankeith (Aug 5, 2010)

But highly unlikely is NOT impossible, so you never know until you actually try.


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## Spider-Spazz (Aug 5, 2010)

when at petsmart, if i ever get too many crickets i let the leftover ones go in my back yard. petsmart has the little yellowish ones, in my backyard are black ones that i HATE! they sneak into my house and chirp at night!
i've never captive bred them, but i've been seeing a lot of mixed breed crickets under pieces of wood and things. they're blackish yellowish in color, pretty interesting.


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## Toirtis (Aug 5, 2010)

bugmankeith said:


> But highly unlikely is NOT impossible, so you never know until you actually try.


True, but cross-genera hybrids are extremely rare....impossible about 99.99% of the time. In fact, I cannot think of any involving insects.

Reactions: Useful 1


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## Travis K (Aug 5, 2010)

Am I the only one that really gets twisted up about you guys letting domestic/farm raise crickets go in you local ecosystems?

Reactions: Like 1 | Agree 3


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## Crysta (Aug 5, 2010)

nooo your not, it was a horrible idea ill never do again!   my dont know better youth escapes.. .hehe

Reactions: Like 1


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## Moltar (Aug 5, 2010)

You know, they did a similar thing with honeybees once. As I recall the hybridizing of African honeybees and European honeybees worked out really well... for the bees. 




A. Probably won't succeed (as mentioned before, different genus)
B. Would likely produce an inferior feeder anyway (if it did succeed)
C. DON'T let them get back into the wild (if you do succeed that is, which you probably won't)

Reactions: Agree 1 | Funny 1


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## zonbonzovi (Aug 5, 2010)

Moltar said:


> You know, they did a similar thing with honeybees once. As I recall the hybridizing of African honeybees and European honeybees worked out really well... for the bees.


Same genus


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## Moltar (Aug 5, 2010)

zonbonzovi said:


> Same genus


Yep. I assumed as much or they probably wouldn't have even made the attempt. There are a few thousand dead folks whom's loved ones would probably like to thank those Brazilian scientists in person.

It's probably a bit of a stretch to think this cross could result in killer crickets though. The more likely scenario in my mind is that the big, tough field crickets will end up munching on the soft little brown ones. [nomnomnom]


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## Travis K (Aug 5, 2010)

OH YEAH, the title of this thread is all wrong



Crossbreed/X-breed not interbreed


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## ZephAmp (Aug 5, 2010)

Toirtis said:


> True, but cross-genera hybrids are extremely rare....impossible about 99.99% of the time. In fact, I cannot think of any involving insects.


_Princisia vanwaerebeki_ x _Gromphadorhina portentosa_ has recorded hybrids, but there is some dispute as to whether or not they should be in separate genuses, let alone separate species...

Reactions: Like 1


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## bugmankeith (Aug 8, 2010)

The whole reason for my idea was to produce fatter, healthier feeders that dont get sick easily. That's the only reason why, not to make killer crickets. 

And as far as releasing house crickets on the species map it states their native in my area. As a matter of fact i've been to a house infested with them, and they never bought crickets, as they have no pets to feed. They surround dumpsters, houses with lots of filth, or areas with a fireplace, oil burner, or logpile.


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## JohnDapiaoen (Aug 11, 2010)

cross breeding crickets is true unfortunately, back when i used feeder crickets many would excape and after a few years i start seeing big field crickets with feeder cricket colors and they were huge! I feel bad since thier whole gene pool is messed up in my area and im the probable cause. here are pics of the few normal ones i could find (or unoticeable hybrids):












the giant hybrids:

Reactions: Wow 1


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## John Kanker (Aug 11, 2010)

I would guess your "hybrid" crickets John are _Gryllus assimilis_ or another _Gryllus_ species.

Cheers John.

Reactions: Agree 1


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## JohnDapiaoen (Aug 11, 2010)

Thank god that's a relief though I do feel stupid

Reactions: Like 1


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## Louise E. Rothstein (Sep 7, 2010)

*Anyone ever attempted to interbreed house crickets with field crickets?*

Wild hybrid crickets...?-They might not be: house crickets have enough color variation to produce "field cricket hybrids" that are not really hybridized.

Have any of these "hybrids" withstood more scientific inspection than a probably fleeting glimpse from a distance...if they have NOT even been checked over for such things as full maturity and whether they are fertile,and,if so, what the offspring look like we do NOT really know whether these "wild hybrid crickets" are not either color phases in house crickets or purebred native crickets of species other than BLACK field crickets.


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## Vulgaris (Sep 13, 2010)

I've tried it many times. Male crickets will attempt to court any female (regardless of species) but the females refuse to mate with males that are not of the same sp. They can tell the difference in the type of chirp. Their genetalia are probably incompatible anyway

It's not possible, but it sure would be cool


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## Louise E. Rothstein (Nov 10, 2011)

More than two kinds of crickets turn up in this country.
Please have your  "hybrids" identified before you announce that they ARE "hybrids"
because they might turn out to be something entirely else.


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## Alltheworld601 (Oct 14, 2012)

Crysta said:


> to not confuse babies? i dunno.
> But i would have kept the male cricket and that female cricket in the enclosure...so you can have hundreds! lol
> 
> edit
> ...


Okay so I realize I'm bumping an older thread.  But its interesting, so maybe it deserves a bump.  Also I have experienced the same thing as the quoted poster.

When I only had two tarantulas I would often buy too many crickets to keep alive for as long as it takes tarantulas to consume that many.  Also for a while my leopard gecko boycotted crickets, and I was left with a whole mess of them in a little plastic tank that nobody wanted to eat.  So quite a few times I let the light colored pet store crickets go outside and just started fresh a week later.  After a few times of this, I too started seeing what looked very much like hybrid crickets appearing in my grass and even on my porch.  They werent like anything I'd ever seen...we have a lot of those black field crickets around here just living wild, and these strange new crickets were sort of a mix between the wild ones and the pet store ones.  The cold weather has since made them stop appearing, but I was seeing them for a WHILE.  It is my guess that its because I released so many. 

I hope I didn't destroy a precarious ecosystem..though the wild black ones are a whole lot more aggressive and probably invasive than the pet store ones, so I imagine the balance will stay about the same.  

Lot of new people joined since this post was started, anybody else have similar experiences?

---------- Post added 10-14-2012 at 09:02 AM ----------

aand i'm retarded, I didnt' see the second page of this thread.  Most of my questions have been answered there and there's probably no need to continue it.  Well..my apologizes..I'd delete my response if I could, but I can't figure out how.  Sorry!

Reactions: Funny 1


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## Tenodera (Oct 14, 2012)

For anybody interested in this issue, do the hybrid crickets look like this: http://bugguide.net/node/view/701989
Or this: http://bugguide.net/node/view/454116/bgimage? Or something else?
I was confused seeing light, patterned Gryllus for the first time too, but sometimes the coloration goes away as they mature, and I've gotten them from normal adults. My guess is it's environmentally influenced. There are also some species like Gryllus firmus and personatus that are regularly brown or tan.

Reactions: Helpful 1


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## Alltheworld601 (Oct 14, 2012)

they look a lot more like the second link...but i dont know much about crickets.  i just was concerned about whether or not I had destroyed my local ecosystem...lol


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## selkielass (Oct 14, 2012)

Moltar said:


> Yep. I assumed as much or they probably wouldn't have even made the attempt. There are a few thousand dead folks whom's loved ones would probably like to thank those Brazilian scientists in person.
> 
> It's probably a bit of a stretch to think this cross could result in killer crickets though. The more likely scenario in my mind is that the big, tough field crickets will end up munching on the soft little brown ones. [nomnomnom]


African strains of honeybees are well adapted to the tropics and tothe defending their homescolony against aggressive predators. 
European strains have been selected to be gentle, and store away lots and lots of honey.
*Both* are introduced species that while beneficial to agriculture have had detrimental effects on native species of bees.
But if you want insect pollinated fruits and vegetables you need bees pf some sort to get good yields.

Pls don't go on about thousands dead by bee sting. Its no fairer to bees than going on about deadly spider bites, venemous snakes or roach borne disease is to those creatures as a whole.


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## spydrhunter1 (Oct 14, 2012)

Spider-Spazz said:


> when at petsmart, if i ever get too many crickets i let the leftover ones go in my back yard. .


Precisely why the USDA-APHIS requirements for exotic insects are so stringent.

Reactions: Like 2


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## patrickbull (Oct 15, 2012)

I have also seen the mix after letting them go around the house. And yes I'm very aware of the different species. And they were not any of the native species. I don't think you should worry about having messed up any ecosystems....my friends. The regular black "field" genes normally overcome the domesticated genes after 2 years or so. Only the positive traits that would benefit the species would carry on if they provide advantages for living outside in that environment......Don't worry if you are still seeing crickets you haven't messed up any ecosystem lol. The odds are just as much in favor of you helping it than hurting it......


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## Introvertebrate (Oct 15, 2012)

I thought Acheta domestica was strictly a fair weather cricket.  If it does manage to breed with a local species, it's offspring would die off the minute the first frost hits.


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## Spiderman937 (Apr 20, 2013)

Throw them up in the air and catch them until they learn to use their wings, if they have full length hind wings. Has anyone ever done this? I used to do this to lure bats and large darner dragonflies.

Reactions: Funny 1


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## bugmankeith (Apr 20, 2013)

Spiderman937 said:


> Throw them up in the air and catch them until they learn to use their wings, if they have full length hind wings. Has anyone ever done this? I used to do this to lure bats and large darner dragonflies.


I tried it with ones I kept as pets, over time they learned to crawl to the end of my finger and jump off and use their wings, it was really cool because most people have no idea they can fly, mainly males.


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## Peter_Parker (Apr 26, 2013)

Apparently _they_ don't even know they can haha, at least the crickets at every pet store I've ever been don't.. I've seen plenty of mature males with full sets of wings tumble precariously off ledges of reasonable height or climb to the top of some object and jump off without any attempt to slow their falls with those "long, papery structures on their backs"..

Reactions: Funny 1


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## LilyHasAZoo (Oct 19, 2016)

Travis K said:


> Am I the only one that really gets twisted up about you guys letting domestic/farm raise crickets go in you local ecosystems?


I get what you mean, I for one don`t think it is a good idea to let breeding crickets go, occasionally I get one escape artist that might get out of my house and go outside, but I never let them go. They would take food and mess up the ecosystem in your local area.


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## Toxoderidae (Oct 20, 2016)

LilyHasAZoo said:


> I get what you mean, I for one don`t think it is a good idea to let breeding crickets go, occasionally I get one escape artist that might get out of my house and go outside, but I never let them go. They would take food and mess up the ecosystem in your local area.


While Travis is still here and posts, why did you reply directly addressing him? This thread is from 2013.

Reactions: Funny 1


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## mascondante (Dec 30, 2016)

Seems this has been upgraded from impossible to plausible reading the thread. If no one has put serious effort into it I'll try to find some field crickets and see if I can get lucky come spring time.


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## Jacob Ma (Dec 30, 2016)

mascondante said:


> Seems this has been upgraded from impossible to plausible reading the thread. If no one has put serious effort into it I'll try to find some field crickets and see if I can get lucky come spring time.


But you can't hybridize them with just breeding them together. Not only is it because they are in two different genera, but they come from two different parts of the world _and_ there are many other genera of field crickets out there. IF they could hybridize that easily, then there would be a lot more hybrids out there in the wild between different genera. Yes, house crickets can survive on their own in the wild of the eastern US, but no, they do not produce viable offspring with the native species. Hybridizing is not necessarily profitable either, as even if they would produce a living offspring(s) it would not be able to produce offspring itself, even with its own "kind".

Most of the people who have claimed that they've seen a so-called "hybrid" between the two species have no idea that there are more than one species of field cricket indigenous to the US, and they don't all come in one color/variation. One cannot take any random species from the wild without taking any in-depth measures, and claim that they have created/discovered a new species.

Reactions: Agree 1


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## Tenodera (Jan 7, 2017)

As Vulgaris said earlier, the thing with crickets is that the whole purpose of the songs is to prevent hybridization. Females know that males which don't sing right aren't of the same species, and so there is a pre-mating barrier to interbreeding.


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## Cyncrashnburn (Mar 31, 2019)

bugmankeith said:


> Now is the time when Field crickets are mature, so I decided to put a male field cricket in with a bunch of virgin female house crickets, and then a male house cricket with 2 virgin female field crickets, whom I caught as last instar before molting to adult. I lined the 2 tanks with soil, food, and paper towel rolls.
> 
> The male field cricket was highly aggressive to the house females, trying to bite their legs off, so I let him and the females go outside. However, the male house cricket was having some luck with the field females. At first they tried to kick him away, but within a few hours I witnessed him mate with a female and saw the sperm transfer! I waited to make sure it was not aborted, and it was not.
> 
> ...


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## Cyncrashnburn (Mar 31, 2019)

Last fall I caught 3 males and only 1 female. They were very small when I got them. They lived for about 4 months and the female laid eggs which hatched before the mature crickets died. I now have a new generation doing well. The reason I was interested is that I found the house crickets do not handle cooler temps very well but the field crickets are more hardier. So this is why I was wondering if any one had crossbred them.


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## Introvertebrate (Apr 1, 2019)

I'm not sure how cold winters get in Enderby, but field crickets in my neck of the woods require an annual 'hibernation period' at some stage of their life cycle, be it egg or cricket.  They won't proliferate indefinitely if you don't subject them to that somehow.  Tropical crickets don't require hibernation or diapause.  That's why tropical species are generally preferred among hobbyists.


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## Cyncrashnburn (Apr 1, 2019)

Are winters very lately but it has been as low as -35C. I hadn't thought of that as so far it doesn't it hasn't been an issue.

Reactions: Like 1


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## MoranDisciple (Apr 1, 2019)

Is that a field cricket setup? Explain...


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## Introvertebrate (Apr 2, 2019)

I did some 'research' on field crickets before, and this is what I found:

I did some poking around, and it turns out that the two most common field crickets found in the northeastern US, (and presumably Canada) are Gryllus veletis (the spring field cricket) and Gryllus pennsylvanicus (the fall field cricket).  G pennyslvanicus may not be a good choice for breeding purposes, because they supposedly need to have their eggs go through a dormancy period in cold temperatures to hatch - at least 3 months or so.  I read a post, however, by a fellow who says he successfully bred G. veletis for a couple of generations in captivity.  As I understand it, Gryllus veletis is an adult in the spring. It chirps in the spring. Gryllus pennsylvanicus is an adult in the fall. It chirps in the fall.

http://www.roachforum.com/topic/1423-small-scale-cricket-breeding/#entry5637


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## dord (Apr 2, 2019)

I can't find any information on Acheta x Gryllus hybrids, I highly doubt the old posts here claiming they found some in the wild.


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## Cyncrashnburn (Apr 4, 2019)

MoranDisciple said:


> Is that a field cricket setup? Explain...


The setup I've been using is based on videos from you tube. I have them in an aquarium with containers with moist soil, food dish, and water dish with wet TP. The bottom has powdered saw dust which keeps any smell away and some articles for them to hide or climb on also a light bulb for warmth. I've had them now for 7 month and there has been several hatches. I find them very entertaining as so do my cats. I've never seen them fly and only jump when startled or trying to catch them. They seem to recognize there food or water dish when I move them. Other than that they are reaching their full size.


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## Vanisher (Apr 4, 2019)

If the purpouse is to feed the insects to spiders or lizards or others, hybridizations are a non issue!


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## Cyncrashnburn (Apr 4, 2019)

Vanisher said:


> If the purpouse is to feed the insects to spiders or lizards or others, hybridizations are a non issue!


Yes it is for my other critters for food.


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## Vanisher (Apr 4, 2019)

They work as well as other crickets. Cant have crickets though! Too noisy!


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