![]() As the temperature falls, the reactions' rates slow, causing the chirping to also slow. As the temperature rises, it becomes easier to reach a certain activation or threshold energy, and chemical reactions, like the ones that allow a cricket to chirp, can occur more rapidly. Specifically, an equation called the Arrhenius equation describes the activation energy, or threshold energy, required to make these reactions occur. This affects how quickly these chemical reactions can occur. Insects, like crickets, are cold-blooded and take on the temperature of their surroundings. How is a cricket's chirp related to temperature? Crickets, like all living things, have many chemical reactions going on inside their bodies, such as reactions that allow muscles to contract to produce chirping. If you want to hear examples of it chirping under hot, warm, cool, and cold conditions for yourself, check out the related project idea "Digging Deeper" section. ![]() The snowy tree cricket is frequently cited as the most accurate at predicting temperature. If you did this activity multiple times and found that based on the cricket's chirps it is colder than it is based on the thermometer, this could be because the cricket is further away from a warm building than the thermometer is, and/or because the cricket is closer to the cold soil. Using this activity, you may have found that the cricket was within about five degrees Fahrenheit of the temperature measured using the outdoor thermometer, and probably even closer than that. ![]() These equations all vary slightly, depending upon the species of cricket. There have been many equations published describing the relationship between the number of chirps per second and the temperature. How close is the temperature based on the cricket chirping to the temperature based on the thermometer? If they are different, by how much are they different? Why do you think they might be different?Īs far back as the late 1800s, there have been articles published noting that a cricket's chirping rate (or number of chirps per second that it makes) changes based on the outdoor temperature.
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