Subject: Big black bug in my basement and it jumps
Location: Northeast Pennsylvania
September 23, 2016 6:10 pm
Hi bug man,
I have these big black bugs in my basement. I think they are crickets but I don’t hear them. Can you tell me what they are. I am attaching a picture.
Thank you.
Signature: Vito
Dear Vito,
This is indeed a female Field Cricket in the genus Gryllus, and her sex is evident because of the long ovipositor at the tip of her abdomen. She is silent because only the male Field Crickets chirp.
Daniel,
Thank you so much. She is a beautiful bug. Didn’t know that the females didn’t chirp.
Thanks again
Many years ago, when Daniel first moved to a small cottage in the Glassell Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, he had a male Field Cricket living in the drain of the sink in the bathroom. It chirped for months.
That must have drove him crazy! That reminds me of the time when I was a child we kept hearing a beep in the wall. This beep happened every so often. It went on for about a year drove everyone nuts. Until one day my father had to get behind the wall for whatever reason and found a smoke detector. That was what was beeping the whole time because the battery was low. I don’t know how it got there but it made us think we were all crazy for a year!
Quite the contrary. The Cricket was a known entity, and not a mysterious beep. The Cricket would hide when the water ran and when all was calm at night, it would chirp. It was actually a comforting sound.