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Greenhouse Camel Crickets Invading U.S. Homes, Why They're a Danger to Each Other and Not Humans

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New research has shown how camel crickets have quickly risen to prominence in the U.S. and are now a certain species is outnumbering their natural relatives.

According to LiveScience, the new species is called Diestrammena asynamora and it is a camel cricket from Asia. These insects are also known as cave crickets, greenhouse camel crickets and "sprickets" (spider crickets) and they are known to eat anything, including their own.

The new study is published in the journal PeerJ and got its start when a North Carolina State University (NCSU) taxonomist found the insects in a colleague's basement.

"The good news is that camel crickets don't bite or pose any kind of threat to humans," study lead author Dr. Mary Jane Epps, a postdoctoral researcher at NCSU, said in a press release. "We don't know what kind of impact this species has on local ecosystems though it's possible that the greenhouse camel cricket could be driving out native camel cricket species in homes."

D. asynamora was first spotted in the U.S. in the 19th century, but scientists at the time thought the insects were rare away from their greenhouses. The new study claims they are more common than their relative camel crickets in homes east of the Mississippi River.

The researchers asked the general public to look for the greenhouse camel crickets in their own homes and to send in photos or physical specimens if they could. They also sampled 10 homes in Raleigh, N.C., finding the greenhouse camel crickets to favor parts of the yard close to the person's house.

They also found another greenhouse camel cricket, this one dubbed D. japanica, from photos submitted from the general public. These "scavengers" do not pose a threat to humans and the researchers are simply trying to learn more about an insect that has crawled under the radar for a long time.

"Because they are scavengers, camel crickets may actually provide an important service in our basements or garages, eating the dead stuff that accumulates there," study co-author Dr. Holly Menninger, director of public science in the Your Wild Life lab at NCSU, said in the release. "We know remarkably little about these camel crickets, such as their biology or how they interact with other species.

"We're interested in continuing to study them, and there's a lot to learn."

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