Crickets Essay, Research Paper

Insects have been a

nuisance to man since the beginning of time, up

until the present. One of the plagues that struck

Egypt was swarms of crickets, and locusts, which

destroyed crops, and ate entire fields. Swarms of

Crickets can cover up to 210 km. There have

been cases of up to 100,000,000,000 insects in a

swarm (one hundred billion). In these huge

masses, they can completely destroy the land and

everything on a farm. I chose to do this experiment

because when I am at camp I am constantly

woken up by the loud chirping of these annoying

insects. There are three types of crickets: Mole

Crickets, Field Crickets, and House Crickets. The

Mole Cricket?s body is designed for digging

subterranean tunnels. This Cricket?s body is well

adapted to digging. The Mole Cricket usually lives

in hot dry areas, and are extremely harmful to

plants such as barley, and flax The Field Cricket

has had a history in ancient China. This cricket?s

beautiful song was held in particularly high esteem.

These crickets were often kept in exquisitely

ornamented cages made of sandalwood, ivory or

jade. The Most common cricket is the house

cricket. The house cricket?s body is more slender

than that of the field cricket. It is also generally

lighter in color. This crickets appears in abundance

in central Europe, such as cellars, houses,

bakeries, and so on. Procedure Problem: How do

I make a cricket deterrent that is environmentally

friendly? Hypothesis: If I use a deterrent that has a

strong odor, then it will deter the crickets from that

area. 2 I started my experiment by first buying 60

crickets. The crickets were stored in bags until

they were ready to be used. I purchased a clear

plastic box with holes in the top for breathing. I

made a divider out of cardboard and secured it in

the center of the box, making four equal sections.

One section was the control, and in the others I

put a deterrent. Two tests were made that were

thrown out because they were irrelevant. In the

first case, the crickets were not deterred at all by

any of the substances. The test was done outside,

and the crickets seemed to simply move their

position depending on the location of the sun. The

crickets seemed only deterred by the sun. They all

moved to wherever the shadow of the sun seemed

the darkest. I concluded that crickets are

deterred, to some extent, by sunlight. The other

test seemed erroneous because all of the crickets

died very quickly. In this test, the crickets all died

within 15 minutes, in whichever substance they

went in first. There was too much of liquid in each

section. These observations helped me in making

an accurate experiment. The rest of my

experiments were done inside my house, where

there is not direct sunlight. In my first test I used

onion powder, garlic powder, lime juice and water

as the control. I thought that the onion powder

would work well because it has a strong odor, that

would deter the crickets, and the powder would

work better than a whole onion. I figured that the

garlic powder would work for basically the same

reasons as the onion, but probably a little bit

better, because it has a stronger smell. I thought

that the lime juice would work well because it is

quite acidic, and would also kill any crickets that

went to it. The one cricket that was not deterred

by the lime juice in this test was dead. I used

water as the control in my experiment because it

has no odor to deter the crickets, and is not

acidic, so it would not kill the crickets. 3 In my

second test I used powdered tide, fertilizer,

dishwasher soap, and water for the control. I

thought the Tide would work well because of its

color, although it does not have a strong odor, and

it is not acidic. I thought the house plant food

would work well, because it had a strong smell,

and it contained boric acid, making it acidic. The

house plant food worked the best in this test,

because it has two characteristics that would deter

the crickets. In the third test I used baking soda,

vinegar, Comet powder, and water as the control.

I thought that the baking soda would work

because of its color. The baking soda was the

worst deterrent used. The Comet worked very

well, but not quite as well as the vinegar, because

it did not have the strong smell that the vinegar did.

In the final test I took the best deterrents from all

of the tests, the lime juice, the house plant food,

and the vinegar, and again the water for the

control. For this test the crickets were left in the

container for a longer time. Although some of the

crickets moved from time to time, they stayed

away from the vinegar all of the time, and mostly

stayed in the section that had the lime juice. The

lime juice did not work as well as the other

substances, because it does not have as strong a

smell. The most effective deterrent was the

vinegar, and if a large swarm of crickets were

attacking his crops, it would probably be the best

defense, but in more average circumstances, the

house plant food would work better. The house

plant food would work as a fairly effective

deterrent, but not smell up the crops, and would

certainly not harm them as vinegar might, it might

even help the crops. I also found that the crickets

were deterred by sunlight, so the most likely time

that a swarm would appear would be during the

night. 4 I accepted my hypothesis. The vinegar

was the best deterrent and had the strongest smell.

The house plant food also had an odor and

worked quite well. The only exceptions to this

were that the garlic and onion powder did not

work well as deterrents, probably because they

did not have a very strong or ofensive smell.

Bibliography 1. ?Cricket,? Microsoft ® Encarta.

©1994 Microsoft Corporation. © 1994 Funk &

Wagnalls Corporation. 2. ?Cricket,? Grolier

Encyclopedia of Knowledge. © 1993 Grolier

Incorporated. pages 73-74 3. ?Cricket,? The

New Book of Knowledge. © 1990 Grolier

Incorporated. pages 168-170 Cricket