Crickets and Grasshoppers

[deckardcanine]

Crickets and grasshoppers look rather similar,
Both found in meadows while jumping around,
But crickets are smaller and blacker on average,
Though they can both come in green or in brown.

Crickets make noise when their wings rub together,
While grasshoppers rub with a leg on a wing.
Their females may chirp in response to the males,
If less often, while she-crickets can’t ever sing.

A grasshopper’s diet is purely herbivorous,
Feasting on plant stems and flowers and seeds.
A cricket eats all that plus fruit and bug larvae
And aphids to meets its omnivorous needs.

The cricket’s antennae are longer and wispier.
Sometimes they’re used in a fight for a mate.
It’s active at nighttime in contrast with grasshoppers.
That’s how you know which you hear when it’s late.

The average cricket lives 8 to 10 weeks,
While a grasshopper’s lifespan goes up to a year.
They jump a bit farther and come in more species.
That’s plenty of differences; guess I’ll stop here.