Yellow Cricket
2 Photo Gallery
1 Yellow Cricket Breed Overview
The Yellow Cricket, as its name suggests, has a yellow body. Its song is very pleasant, so it has long been a favorite. It is small, only about 8 mm long as an adult.
Because the Yellow Cricket is gorgeous, all golden, and has a slender, beautiful posture when singing with a clear, long trill, it is also called the golden little violinist.
Chinese name: Yellow Cricket
Other names: Large Yellow Cricket, Yellow Needle Cricket, Yellow Cricket
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Mandibulata
Class: Insecta, formerly the Hexapoda
Subclass: Pterygota
Order: Orthoptera
Suborder: Ensifera
Family: Grylloidea, Gryllidae (cricket)
Species: Yellow Cricket
Distribution: Widely distributed
2 Physical Characteristics of the Yellow Cricket
The Yellow Cricket is entirely golden yellow; the male’s wings are glossy, transparent, and have a larger sound-producing area. Being small, it is much loved-people keep it mainly to hear its wonderful song, and secondarily to admire its long antennae.
This insect is 7-8 mm long and about 2.5 mm wide; the antennae are 30-35 mm long; the head and pronotum each have two broad bands, the hind femur has two dark stripes on the outside and a dark round spot near the tip on the inside. The compound eyes are gray-green, the forewings developed, covering the whole abdomen. The pronotum is roughly square, and the antennae are very long, 4-5 times the body length.
The Yellow Cricket is famous for its outstanding trait. Its song is a clear ‘ling-ling-ling,’ pleasant and melodious, clearer and brighter than the Campsis cricket. For its good looks, beautiful song, and long appreciation period, it was praised as the ‘King of Singing Insects’ at the first Shanghai Singing Insect Exhibition.
3 Yellow Cricket Living Environment
The Yellow Cricket has both a lovely voice and fine looks. These insects should not be mixed, and certainly not kept as one male and one female in the same box; if mixed, they will fight. Fighting damages their appearance, and while the winner keeps singing, whether the loser will sing again is uncertain.
The best enclosure is a transparent plastic or acrylic rectangular box, because this singing insect not only has a beautiful song but also a delicate, lively, and elegant form. It has a pair of flickering long antennae in front and two long, strong hind legs behind, plus a golden body that glitters, making it both dignified and graceful-one of the most ornamental of pet insects. A transparent acrylic box lets the owner admire its slender figure at any time, which is important.
The box should be fairly large, because although the insect is small it has very long antennae; only with enough space can the long antennae stretch fully and show its graceful figure. The box should ideally be 20x12x8 cm.
4 Yellow Cricket Care
The Yellow Cricket seems full of energy, singing day and night, especially cheerfully and loudly at dusk and dawn. Its voice is unimaginable-it sings almost endlessly without going hoarse.
Feed it pumpkin, watermelon rind, apple, pear, and congee; occasionally a few small maggot-like larvae as meat to boost nutrition and make the song richer and more beautiful.
Yellow Crickets mostly live in suburbs or low shrubs, wormwood, and weeds in the hills, and have some cold resistance, but in severe winter still take warming measures to ensure safe overwintering; done well, they can be kept until March-April of the next year.