Introduction - Distribution - Identification - Life Cycle - Habitat - Song - Selected References
This cricket is the most commonly encountered field cricket in Florida. It is common in lawns, roadsides, and pastures. In most parts of the state, it is the only field cricket that trills rather than chirps.
Other Florida field and house crickets.
The southeastern field cricket occurs throughout southeastern United States.
The southeastern field cricket and the sand field cricket often occur together and are sometimes difficult to distinguish except by song. The easiest morphological means of telling the two apart is the color pattern on the forewings. For males, the number and spacing of the teeth in the stridulatory file is definitive.
In southern Florida, where southeastern and Jamaican field crickets co-occur, the color pattern of the head will separate the two.
In western Florida, where both southeastern and southwestern field crickets occur, the only sure means of telling the two apart is by the pulse rate (=wingstroke rate) during the male’s calling song. The southeastern field cricket has the slower song, with a pulse rate of less than 62 at 77°F. If the two are singing at the same time and place, a trained ear can identify the males that are trilling at the slower pulse rate as southeastern field crickets
Adults are most abundant in spring and fall, but adults and middle-sized to large juveniles can be found throughout the year. Small nymphs do not survive the winters in north Florida, and eggs laid in early December may remain dormant until the following spring. In states to the north of Florida, middle-sized to large juveniles are the overwintering stages and there are two discrete generations with adults occurring in spring and again in late summer.
This species occurs in lawns, pastures, and roadsides and is sometimes attracted to lights in numbers.
The 
calling song (657 Kb wav file) of the southeastern field cricket is a trill that is interrupted every second or so (graphs). Often the pulse sequence within the trill not quite uniform, because the wings occasionally pause momentarily during the silent opening stroke.
Author: Thomas J. Walker, University of Florida
Photographs: Paul M. Choate, University of Florida
Project Coordinator: Thomas R. Fasulo, University of Florida
Publication Number: EENY-67
Publication Date: January 1999
Copyright 1999 University of Florida
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Department of Entomology and Nematology
Division of Plant Industry
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long-winged male
short-winged female