Facts About Orthoptera

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Facts about Orthoptera

Where they live.

Field crickets, the familiar black or brownish crickets are often abundant in meadows and fields. Also in dwellings or in small clusters in the ground. Tree Crickets are more often heard then seen. Usually colored green these slender crickets live in shrubs and trees. Mole Crickets can burrow rapidly through moist soil. They also can live in caves, hollow logs, beneath stones, and other dark moist places. Grasshoppers are also part of this group.
They often become very abundant, and migrate in tremendous swarms. Destroying nearly all plants in their path. They like to live in wet grassy areas. Locust also contribute to Orthoptera. Locust plagues have been recorded since the beginning of history and are still one of the worlds major insect problems.
Cockroaches are in this group too. Their are an estimated 3,000 cockroach species in the world. About 55 live in the U.S., and only 4 species ar common household pets. German cockroaches or Croton bugs, are common in the U.S. especially in the northern states. They commonly enter the house in bags or boxes from grocery stores. They tend to cluster in warm moist places around hot water pipes. They stay hidden when they are not eating.

Eat

Crickets will eat holes in paper or in garments especially those soiled with persperation. They also eat young roots and seedlings, peanuts, garden crops, grain, clothing, and sometimes other insects and even each other.
Grasshoppers are a different story. They eat crops and destroy millions of dollars a year in them. Cockroaches are just a pest and they eat almost any thing. Cockroaches feed on a great variety of foods, meats, cheeses, sweets, and starches(like the starch in clothing or in the glue like that in book bindings, and stamps.). When abundant they may also eat human hair, skin and nails. They secrete sticky, odorous fluid that may be lift on foods or materials. Movement

Cockroaches move very swiftly. They have 6 legs with 3 joints, as muscles contract at the base of the body the legs move. This motion causes a roach to lurch forward in rapid motion. Crickets have wings so they may fly.
The movement of the crickets aren't the same as the grasshopper's. The grasshopper is an insect that can leap about 20 times the length of its body.
If a human being had the same leaping ability as the grasshopper they could jump at least 20 feet.

Helpful things they do.

In Russia roaches have been regarded as an antidote for dropsy. Also in
Southeast Asia, and China the bits of meat plucked from around the legs of

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