Songs of Florida House and Field Crickets

Compare songs by ear (wav files)

Field crickets (Gryllus spp.)

Chirping species

sand field cricket (Gryllus firmus)
southern wood cricket (Gryllus fultoni)
Jamaican field cricket (Gryllus assimilis)

Trilling species

Southeastern field cricket (Gryllus rubens)
Texas field cricket (Gryllus texensis)

Taciturn species (no calling song)

Taciturn wood cricket (Gryllus ovisopis)

House crickets

Chirping species

House cricket (Acheta domesticus)
Tropical house cricket (Gryllodes sigillatus)

Compare songs by ear and eye (wav files and graphs)

Below are graphs of the calling songs of house and field crickets.

For each species there are two graphs, each representing the same two seconds of calling:

(For a complete explanation of the graphs click on explanation.)

house cricket Acheta domesticus	normal song	slowed song	4.8 kHz	5	explanation
tropical house cricket Gryllodes sigillatus	normal song	slowed song	4.7 kHz	5	explanation
sand field cricket Gryllus firmus	normal song	slowed song	3.6 kHz	4	explanation
southeastern field cricket Gryllus rubens	normal song	slowed song	4.8 kHz	5	explanation
Texas field cricket Gryllus texensis	normal song	slowed song	4.7 kHz	5	explanation
Jamaican field cricket Gryllus assimilis	normal song	slowed song	3.5 kHz	4	explanation
southern wood cricket Gryllus fultoni	normal song	slowed song	4.5 kHz	4	explanation

The upper graph, an oscillogram, displays the amplitude (loudness) of the call as vertical displacement on both sides of a horizontal base line. [During silence, an oscillogram is a horizontal line.]

The lower graph, an audiospectrogram, displays amplitude as darkness of mark and frequency (pitch) as the height of the marks above a base line (not shown). The tick marks at the left of the audiospectrogram are at 1 kHz (1000 cycles per second) intervals. The value of the center (red) tick mark is in red above the graphs. Because the graph is made for maximum time discrimination (rather than for maximum frequency discrimination), a continuous pure frequency would plot as a broad band about 0.8 kHz wide.

Above the oscillogram for each species are these items:

common name: linked to the home page for the species.

normal song: linked to a wav file of eight to 10 seconds of typical calling song.

slowed song: linked to a wav file of normal calling song slowed to 1/4 speed. You will have 8 seconds to listen to the same 2 seconds of calling song that is graphed. The carrier frequency (pitch) will be dropped to 1/4 normal. At this slow speed you can easily hear the pulses (tone bursts) that correspond to closing strokes of the forewings. To see an animation of the wing movement of a chirping field cricket, click here.

n kHz: gives the approximate carrier frequency of the song.

n: the value of the red kHz tick mark.

explanation: linked to this explanation.