Friday, October 10, 2014

Thermometer cricket

Oecanthus fultoni, also known as the snowy tree cricket or thermometer cricket, is a species of tree cricket from North America.  This cricket is probably one the most famous insects as it made an appearance on the T.V. show The Big Bang Theory when the main character Sheldon wrongly believes that a common field cricket, Gryllus assimilis, found in his apartment is a snowy tree cricket. In case you want to check it out it was in Season 3, Episode 2.

So where did this little cricket get its name? This insect is called thermometer cricket because the rate at which it chirps correlates well with the temperature found around the cricket! This means the surrounding temperature can be estimated by using the formula: The air temperature in Fahrenheit equals the number of chirps in one minute, minus 40, divided by 4, and plus 50.

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