Can a cricket tell you the current temp? Experiment for the week.

LMT66

LMT66

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I was doing some reading in my Wildwood Wisdom book earlier and ran across the Cricket Thermometer on page 404.

The warmer the weather, the faster the chirp.

The book states that you "Count the number of cricket chirps per minute and subtract 40. Divide this result by 4 and add 50. This will give you the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit."

My local weather station said it was 75F. I counted 142 chirps in a minute, minus 40=102 divide by 4=25.5 +50 =75.5

Sopposedly they are never off by 2 or 3 degrees F.

I'm going to keep checking the next few weeks as the weather fluctuates.

For those of you with children, might be a fun family experiment.
 
I remember reading that, but never actually cared enough to try it out. When I'm out for a trip there are three temps: Hot, Cold, and Acceptable. This would be a neat trick to impress the kids with, though.
 
It is called Dolbear's Law, they actually stop chirping at a certain temp as well (I can't remember the specific temp).
 
I did this before, worked well for field crickets. The cool part was the darn pet store crickets were stupid as crud. Didn't work with them
 
Stupid city crickets...

Must have been the air conditioning getting them out of sync with what should have been their natural environment.
 
Ya, my town crickets are not helping either. They are off by 20 degrees. I wish they were right. I'll have to remember to try this next time I'm camping.....
 
Never trust a cityslicker cricket. Never. They hang out with cockroaches and other lowlifes.

Yes, it is pretty accurate with field crickets in their natural environment. I posted this here a year or so ago. But it is interesting enough to repeat.

Codger_64 said:
Last night the crickets told me it was 65 degrees Fahrenheit. No kidding. And they were right.

How many of you use this method to determine the temperature when you camp or hike? Have you ever even heard of it before?

This comes from an old wives (farmers, hunters) tale and I have found that it is amazingly accurate. Well, with a few caveats. Crickets only chirp in temps above 50 degrees f. And there are not crickets everywhere. And you have to count the chirps of a single cricket. Scientific experiments recently confirmed that it does work. And Snopes agrees, so it is settled.

Here is how it works. Male crickets chirp by rubbing their appendages together to attract a female and establish territory. They aren't very active below about 50 degrees. Count the number of times a particular cricket chirps in a 13 second period and add 40. The number will be closer than you might imagine.

What about that 50f degree minimum? Meteorologists have long noted that below 50f degrees (or 10c degrees Celsius). insects usually stop flying and most other activities.

http://classic.globe.gov/fsl/scientistsblog/2007/10/

Not a big deal, but interesting none the less. Something else to poke into your woodslore knowledge and use to amaze friends around the campfire. :)
Click to expand...

I might add that campfire roasted crickets are an acquired taste. No, they can't chirp fast enough to tell you the temp of your campfire. :D
 
Codger, I knew I had seen this before but couldn't find the thread. That's some great info you posted!

After a week, they are pretty much on the money. They must be of Swiss descent.:p
 
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