The Coveted Cricket

To continue on yesterday’s post of edible insects, I thought I would share a story coming from China with the main subject being none other than the coveted cricket. You see China’s historical fascination with crickets has recently been exhibited in cricket beauty contests and ‘singing’ competitions. But just in case that was not weird enough, today’s fascination has taken the cricket to a new high (or low depending on your viewpoint). The competition has now turned to fights between rival crickets with purses (prizes) reaching as much as 7.5 million Renminbi (or approx. $10,000 USD). The ‘fighters’ duel in terrarium sized containers and the fights are projected via overhead cameras onto large screens for the hundreds --- yes hundreds --- of betting spectators. The cameras catch every move including close-ups of the crickets tossing each other around with their powerful jaws.

How do the crickets know to fight you ask? Crickets are trained from a very young age and once they are fully trained, the crickets actually sell for the equivalent of $8,000 USD. The fighting crickets are raised on vegetables and calcium supplements and, being the lucky crickets they are, ALWAYS are sexually active within the hour prior to a fight. (Who knew…humans have fights and then make up, yet the crickets have sex to fight.) In fact, the competition has become so fierce, a doping policy has been drafted up for each fighting cricket. That’s right, just like baseball in America, the crickets are cheating with performance enhancing drugs. Now, I thought I had heard it all before, but I know I have now. I mean honestly, our world has come to doping crickets where fights actually have purses of $10,000 USD and bets on each fight can total 10 times that.

Just so you know though, the doping of crickets did not start with the fights, but actually with the singing contests. Apparently doping the crickets with the performance-enhancing substances slow the vibrations of the cricket’s wings, and therefore produce an attractively lower pitch. So, if you happen upon a Chinese cricket with an unusually strong jaw, or, if you are extremely lucky, a cricket with a beautiful, deep ‘singing voice’, keep in mind, it is probably not natural talent. Oh well.

My parting note: If you ever are curious about the temperature (in Fahrenheit) and there is only a cricket around, never fear. Take the number of chirps produced in a 15 second time segment and then add 40. You then have an accurate reading within 3 degrees. Cool huh?