When I was a kid crickets used to stop chirping if you stomped your foot nearby. I know this because I remember it vividly, and as we all know, personal memory is 100% reliable!
But these days, when I walk past a chirping cricket hidden somewhere near my feet, I can stomp and even jump as hard as I want, and the cricket keeps on chirping.
But then I realised that doesn't make sense. First, obviously, because I am not a biologist and have no idea what I am saying. Second, because I don't think this hypothesis provides environmental pressure on crickets to not be scared of stomping? (What's to gain by continuing to chirp? More mates impressed by your fearlessness? What advantage is lost by halting the chirping for a few seconds?)
But mainly, because surely kids have been stomping on the ground around crickets for amusement for thousands of years. So if crickets were going to evolve an insouciance for stomping feet, wouldn't they have done it long before now?
So have Melbourne crickets been overrun with a different sub species that tolerates foot stomping? Do people these days just not know how to stomp like the old days? Or is my memory playing tricks on me?
Do crickets fall silent when you walk by where you are, or are they all confident and noisy like ours?
One may have stomped on cricket noise a few times in the past. If they don't shut up, they are cicadas.
ReplyDeleteI wondered if that was the case! Cicadas are certainly more common here now than when I was a kid.
DeleteWe haven't had a cricket in the house for years....seems to me though, if memory serves, that nothing shuts the little devils up.
ReplyDeleteyou obviously have the same variety that lives near me
DeleteThey usually stop after I stomp, and never chirp again.
ReplyDeleteWow, and hear I was thinking that stomping NEAR them was a bit mean...
DeleteI have never played cricket so far.
ReplyDeleteI see what you did there
DeleteWe get crickets in our air-conditioning vents at work... not annoying at all. (Kill me!!)
ReplyDeleteAaaghk that must be awful!
DeleteThere was one stuck inside the shelves in the supermarket last time I was there; that was a little disconcerting,
I think you may be right about the new subspecies :-)
ReplyDeleteI am of course an expert on this ;)
DeleteI haven't heard a cricket for quite a while, but I remember the last time I did, there was one in the house and when I went searching for it, it stopped chirping.
ReplyDeleteI've never had one in the house. I wouldn't be keen on that at all. I like the chirping, but outside where it belongs.
DeleteA cricket inside the house is supposed to be lucky, and a gecko inside is also lucky.
ReplyDeleteLast night I heard a cicada for the first time in years. I haven't heard any since we lived in Melbourne or Sydney, can't remember which house we were in.