Food habits of crickets in the wild
Although cricket species have been used in the laboratory for behavioral, genetic, and physiological studies, their field ecology is unexplored. We determined the feeding habits of crickets under the wild conditions by metabarcoding the digestive tract contents of two species of crickets Teleogryllus emma and Gryllus bimaculatus collected in the field. T. emma is the most common species in Japan. G. bimaculatus distributes only south of Okinawa Islands in Japan, but they are used worldwide for biological research and marketed throughout Japan as foods for carnivore pets and human. We collected T. emma in Kagoshima City, and digestive tract contents were removed and frozen within 1 hour. Also, G. bimaculatus were collected on Ishigaki Island and frozen within 1 hour. DNA was extracted from these samples. Each cricket was collected in parks and grassy areas near human habitation.