Crickets as pests

Crickets are orthopterous insects of the family Gryllidae; many are plant and household pests.

Crickets vary in their feeding habits; many are omnivorous. The field cricket Acheta assimilis attacks most crops and is a serious pest of cotton in the USA. The Mormon cricket Anabrus simplex is a pest on crops and rangelands in the northwestern USA. A number of subterranean crickets subsist largely upon roots and are quite injurious when abundant in crops, gardens and young forest plantations; for example, the mole cricket Gryllotalpa hexadactylo eats the roots of seedlings and is particularly destructive of tobacco and vegetable crops in North America and the West Indies. The slashes of the snowy tree cricket Oceanthus neus, weaken the twigs and canes of various fruits.