![]() They have no wings, they can’t sing, and they only live on lava flows, making it near impossible for the crickets to move quickly or find mates. Most pioneer species-the first to colonize an ecosystem that was previously disturbed or somehow too harsh to support most forms of life-are skilled generalists that can survive anywhere, and can move, eat, and breed easily.ĭespite their apparent success, lava crickets don’t fit this bill. ![]() Paul, the team hopes to understand how these insects have come to be such effective colonists in a hostile environment. Led by Marlene Zuk, an entomologist at the University of Minnesota in St. But now, a year after Kilauea’s three-month-long eruption, a team of scientists is stationed at the volcano’s lava fields to learn all they can before the crickets while they’re still in residence. With such a short tenure in a brutal environment, the crickets haven’t exactly been easy to study. The cricket’s hostile habitat in the lava fields of Kilauea. Local Hawaiians had long been aware of the crickets’ sudden, post-volcanic presence, but they didn’t appear in scientific journals until 1978, four years after a team from Honolulu’s Bishop Museum spotted the insects while exploring Kilauea’s lava fields. The dire lifestyle of the lava cricket- Caconemobius fori, or ‘ūhini nēnē pele in Hawaiian-remains a mystery to entomologists, writes Michael Price in a new feature for Science. In other words, lava crickets are extremely metal pioneers. By the time green tufts of plants finally begin to sprout in the volcanic rock, the crickets have already moved on-in search of something more barren. Lava crickets survive by eating decaying plants swept in by the wind and by drinking sea foam, which contains a protein-like compound similar to what is found in egg whites. These insects make their home on the brittle surfaces of cooled lava flows that host no other multicellular life. ![]() Courtesy Alan CresslerĪfter a volcano erupts, lava crickets are the first on the scene. A lava cricket at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. ![]()
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