The annual end-of-summer cricket swarm is upon us, and it probably seems worse than past years because of recent rains.

We've seen your questions on social media. Our staff has been asking about the chirps heard around the newsroom and the pile of crickets banging on the newsroom door. And so we asked Curious Texas: What is with the cricket infestation?

Curious Texas is an ongoing project from The Dallas Morning News that invites you to join in our reporting process. The idea is simple: You have questions, and our journalists are trained to track down answers.

This story is part of Curious Texas, a special project from The Dallas Morning News. You ask questions, our reporters find answers.

Mike Merchant, professor and urban entomologist with Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service in Dallas, says the cricket situation seems about normal to him.

"The rains we’ve just had are the most common kind of trigger for large cricket flights, which signal the beginning of mating season for the black field cricket," he adds.

Some areas may be seeing more crickets than others, but Merchant says he hasn't seen much change in the North Dallas and Richardson area where he works.

Crickets crowd together in front of a building in downtown Dallas. (Vernon Bryant / Staff Photographer)

What are they?

There is only one cricket species known to swarm in large numbers: the Texas field cricket, Gryllus texensis, according to AgriLife, so that's what you are seeing, stepping on, crunching, and avoiding like the cricket plague that it is.

The Texas field cricket population has two generations per year, one in spring, which is relatively small, and one right about now, which is larger. And the largest cricket outbreaks seem to occur during years of dry springs and summers, according to Merchant.

But the crickets you are seeing are not physically larger than previous ones, they are just fully grown.

"They are certainly not physically bigger this year, though I’ve been seeing more adult crickets in July than I usually see," Merchant says. "The biology and swarming behavior of these crickets has not been well studied, so we have no way to predict what crickets will do in a given year, or whether populations will be lower or higher."

Cricket on a window in front of a building in downtown Dallas. (Vernon Bryant / Staff Photographer)

How to avoid them

Merchant says problems are usually greatest in the urban fringe areas, where there is still a lot of open land, pastures and fields where crickets can breed.

"But during mating season, these crickets can fly for dozens of miles," he says. "Businesses and homes most plagued with crickets are usually those with bright white exterior lighting, which draws the flying crickets in."

If you want to reduce your exposure to crickets, turn off outdoor lights as early in the evening as possible, or replace lights with yellow incandescent "bug lights" or low-pressure sodium vapor lamps.

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