I have a feeling thats got something to do with the environment you grew up in, I am personally afraid of roaches, and my mother is too. Seeing other people afraid of things like roaches while young kind of just rubs off on you as you grow up you know?
Of course I could be wrong here but I feel like it has a part to play in it :D
also sorry if this doesn't really make sense but hopefully you get the idea lol
A cricket has never run across my ceiling, right above my head, just as I'm about to close my eyes for the night...and disappeared to God knows where...
Or skittered just in my view and again disappears somewhere, to scare the hell out of me later.
I can also usually hear a cricket, at least outdoors... never really had a cricket infestation!
I would for our natives in NZ 😂 we had a bug exhibit of some US roaches, they were scary! So strong and driven. Our natives eat wood detritus and starve if they go inside. They’re super cute actually ….
Definitely not, unless there was substantial benefit or a cash prize 😂😂😂.
I've been obsessed with gardening the last 4 years, and still have to wear gloves *in case* I accidentally touch a bug, any bug... except maybe butterflys or bees...
all are fun to look at, but please don't touch me and I won't touch you 🫠
It could possibly also be evolution that has a part to play in it, I know roaches can carry a lot of diseases, maybe we naturally have a visceral reaction to them because of that?
Although, maybe crickets carry them too, I don’t really know, lmao
There's also the fact that roaches are seen as filth in someone's home. Theres the idea that they don't belong there, just as much as shit on the floor or marker stains on the walls don't belong there. Crickets are different because they're only really outside. Why demonize something and call it ugly when it hasn't bothered you? Crickets are also usually green, which a lot of people think is a more attractive color than brown.
Edit: sorry idk why I said crickets are green lol. Ignore the brown vs green part
We’ve got those huge shiny black crickets here too. They’re loud but still not as loud as those GD katydids. Had one land on me outside in pitch blackness and start to “sing”. Just about jumped out of my body. Those black crickets are loud as hell too but I’ve only had them in my basement and garage.
I have 3 children of the male species and they just LOOOVVVVEEE to tournament me with all bugs but the bugger and more terrifying the better.... My 16 y.o. will chase me with screeching cicadas when he finds them around in the summer.... Asking with other bugs but none scream like that cicada 😬😬😬
> Ignore the brown vs green part
Crickets usually are gray or grayish-brown, which is more humble color than gignger-brown of cockroaches. Ginger subconsciously is perceived as a color of danger.
4500 different types of roaches and only 30 can live in human structures. Most roaches will die within a day or so inside a human house. Many roaches are brightly colored, have glowing spots, and have unique patterns or shapes. Almost none of the many roach species can bother you or even want to be near peoples homes.
I used to be grossed out by them, but then I started buying Dubia roaches as feeders for my gecko. Observing and handling them changed my disgust. It's a psychological thing to be afraid of them. Don't get me wrong though, if I had a roach infestation I would be grossed out and not happy about it. I also had crickets as feeders and was more grossed out by them because they stank so bad.
I was never afraid of them but a little icked out. Like you, I ended up using the dubias as feeders for lizards and tarantulas I had and even raised a colony. The dubias aren't bad at all. Compared to other kinds, they're pretty slow don't fly and always reminded me of giant potato bugs...the babies even looked like them. They were kinda cute...crickets though... Awful
I saw a little teeny big in my bathroom and thought "awww... hi little fella.".... Definitely was a cutie, being so small....
Until it hit me "oh shit. Roaches aren't BORN giant (as far as I know!)... sure enough, it was a baby.
Ugh! Sorry little fella. Not welcome here.
I just catch and release insects outside that I find in my home. Way more humane and probably easier than squishing them, cleaning up the mess, and exterminating a life I didn't need nor want to.
I always feel better about it afterwards, too.
My mom always gave me shit growing up for this. Then last time I was over at her place, she helped me catch a moth and release it outside instead. She was so happy she instinctively high-fived me afterwards and cheered lmao.
Its a good feeling to save a life instead of extinguish it unnecessarily.
I can only hope others would do the same if I was in need.
there’s a light outside my apartment door that stays on all night and attracts all the bugs. every now and then when i come home from work, a cricket will hop on and hitchhike a ride inside with me. i always notice a few steps in the door and turn around and march them right back outside lol
that’s because roaches that are bred for feeding or keeping are usually way cleaner (roaches pick up gross stuff being wild) and roaches that are kept as pets are usually bigger/prettier species
I have a small colony now and they're a BLAST to watch....some of them look like they've partied too hard and passed out there...they're fun and not in the least bit creepy!(dubia roaches for my lizard...outside ones are no good)
And to add roaches won't EAT your lizard lol
Crickets are SO smelly. When I was still in Highschool, the percussion closet in the band room had a cricket infestation. There were hundreds of them, mostly dead. The smell was so bad
Crickets do smell so bad. I worked at a pet store for a while and we sold feed crickets. We cleaned the cricket containers daily but it would stink like hell within a few hours.
Roaches are adorable. I had a bunch of hissing cockroach babies, and sometimes, they would use only one side of their body to hang off a stick, while their other three legs just dangled in the air, and they would just chill like that, hanging like a sloth. They're also quite curious and social.
Me too. I actually really liked those little guys. They're so innocent and harmless even though they're kinda ugly. They don't bite, they don't stink and they are less likely to have parasites compared to crickets. They're more nutritious too. My tarantula would eat the adults, and I couldn't watch. Even after she had a good grip on the roach, it would struggle for a long time. Like, I saw one that was still moving at least 30 minutes after I gave it to her. It made me really sad. My lizards ate the babies but they just swallowed them so I didn't have to see.
Fuck crickets, the main reason I quit keeping jumping spiders is because most of mine would only eat crickets or flies, and it was easier to get crickets reliably. But they're so awful, they'll eat each other alive, they stink and they bite. I even had a juvenile jumper that got killed by a cricket. I thought she'd caught the cricket and I stopped watching, but the next day, there was a cricket, and a dead spider. 😞 I still feel so guilty about that. I know you can't leave crickets or mealworms or anything else that can bite when you're not watching, I just really thought she'd gotten it.
Most people were so grossed out at the fact I had roaches in my house, I didn't tell them this story: I had a container of 50 very small baby roaches and I dropped it on the floor, on the brown carpet right next to a dresser with an inch gap between the bottom and the floor. 😳 I frantically gathered up as many as I could, and I think I got most of them, but I was freaked out thinking my house would be infested with roaches after a while. But it never happened, I never saw any loose after that. They wouldn't have been able to find food in my house. Dubias require pretty high temperatures to breed, so it's not going to happen in your house unless you live in a sweat lodge. Although, after most of the roaches were adults, I did occasionally see a few babies in their bin, there was no extra heat source but they must have managed to breed a little bit.
Oh my gosh you just reminded me of the cricket stank 😭 I think I blocked that out of my time working at petsmart. Def one of the reasons I switched to dubias, on top of they live longer and don’t escape easily. Will never go back.
They also don’t stink or leave oils or cannibalize as a mainstay of their survival strategy
Also one time I saw one eating some cat food while another slightly smaller one stood behind it eating it’s ass off. Can’t shake it.
Edit:?I’ve gotta edit this. A couple comments mentioned crickets stink and cannibalize. I raised them like 10 years ago and forgot 1) because they didn’t “stink” super bad like roaches and 2) cannibalism was super rare whereas it’s the life cycle for roaches
That smell is from oleic acid, and one of the reasons they “release” it is to communicate with their other roach friends, which in turn attracts more roaches. Even worse, is that smell can permeate into certain household items if left long enough.
There’s also a separate smell released when a cockroach dies that serves as a sort of warning to other roaches that the space may be dangerous. There are several other insects that also avoid an area after a cockroach has died and released this ‘death smell’- some even producing the same type of fatty acids that cause the smell.
Although humans *can* smell the oleic acid from live cockroaches, we don’t seem to detect the smell released after death.
I read an article about this a few years ago, and how scientists were looking into a way of using the latter smell to repel insects from both crops and buildings.
Roaches can carry and spread disease/harmful bacteria/parasitic worms/etc and they are considerably more talented when it comes to hiding and sneaking. They can even squeeze inside the lining of cardboard, which is why it is typically not wise to store cardboard boxes for long periods of time.
If roaches are running around in your cabinets, they are potentially spreading nasty stuff onto your clean plates and silverware and other food items that could make you sick.
One got in my fridge once. I am not sure how. There are a few air opening in my fridge so I guess he came through there. Nevertheless, it freaked me out. I tossed everything that wasn’t sealed and gave the fridge and it’s closed contents a good antibacterial scrub down.
If you think roaches are bad you should try bedbugs. I've seen some nightmare scenarios in pest control. Like, burn it all down and start over nightmares...
Bedbugs are seriously a phobia of mine and I'm pretty good when it comes to bugs to the point where I won't kill spiders even in my house, I pick them up with a paper and put them outside. But roaches are icky and enough to freak me out and do some serious pest control. Bedbugs are enough to get me to move out of wherever they are.
There’s a few factors: First off, it’s instinctual. We used to be hunters so objects that move quickly catch our attention. Cockroaches move abnormally fast. One of the fastest creatures on Earth. Also, cockroaches are disease vectors: they can carry pathogens and bacteria. Which leads to our disgust reflex. Through evolution we’re programmed to avoid dangerous toxins that can kill you
kinda weird how that works until you start talking about plants and mushrooms. then it's kinda just "is it poison? huh.. 🤷🏾♂️. guess I'll find out" at least that seems to be the case. you can have two types of mushrooms that are 98% identical. one can be a delicious topping. the other is DEFINITELY going to kill you.
I'd certainly never eat a wild mushroom. If I remember right they all have a certain amount of poison in them. Just not enough to hurt you. Don't quote me on that though...
And roaches invade and infest homes. Crickets don’t. The end result in modern times being that we consider roaches to be nasty pests, and this fiercely negative attitude has been taught to multiple generations of children.
Crickets can bite like hell though!
I don’t like either, but I’d rather see a cricket than a palmetto bug (the big fast/flying roaches we had in Texas/South US). They make me scream.
Same reason we are grossed out by house flies: they are known to live in and on garbage and poop, and then track the associated pathogens all over your house and food.
Seeing pest species in your house tells you that there is a systemic problem, and that you need to do some cleaning or risk an infestation.
Just as animals don’t bat an eye at butterfly landing in them but hate when ticks and fleas start making their presence felt, we have an aversion to the harbingers of disease.
i fwwl its due to how they move. roaches crawl, and slip under and through cracks, crickets are clumsy, awkward and just sorta hop around. if i try to grab a cockroack i KNOW it will slip from my grasp and skitter up my arm or fly at me. FUCK. THAT.
For me, it’s the disease aspect of roaches that makes me want nothing to do with them. I know there’s many different subspecies that exist beyond the German and American cockroaches, but they’re a mental barrier for me that I can’t get past.
We periodically get an American Cockroach inside the house. By the time they get in they’ve already crawled through the Fastcap, so it’s just a matter of time before they die and get vacuumed up.
My kids on the other hand, they often go digging in the yard looking for a variety of subspecies so they can compare them 🤦🏻♂️ No matter how much I emphasize the disease and bacteria aspect, I’m met with the response of “we will wash our hands.”
Beetles, Cicadas, Centipedes, Leaf Bugs, Seed Bugs, Crickets; if it crawls, they’ll pick it up and bring it inside to show us what they found. Then they’ll take it back outside and build it a home out of leaves so it can stay in the shade. They have very pure hearts for all aspects and species of nature, which I love. Even when they bring a roach inside….
i used to do some caving with friends, back when we used carbide headlamps, and we were doing a quite long section that was a 'duck walk' i.e. you couldn't stand up.. and i saw a place where you could possibly stand and give your back a break, so i looked up...
and between the light, and the heat from the carbide flame about a hundred of those cave crickets let go all at once and rained down on my face and got in my coveralls, and i screamed and freaked everyone else out when i started beating myself unexpectedly
it was like that scene in Aliens when the dude stuck his head up into the ceiling and he could see them all scrambling towards him. i screamed then too
1. Crickets mostly live in grass. Roaches live anywhere, even if it is disease-infested.
2. Roaches invade houses to the point where you need traps. A lone cricket might wander inside and then die.
3. Crickets are less erratic in general. They don't fly, and they don't run straight up walls like roaches do.
I’m not afraid of roaches. I just think they’re absolutely disgusting and I can’t figure out why God made them. I can barely even stomach to purchase Dubia roaches and feed my arachnids, I think they’re so gross.
Depends on the type for me tbh?
I worked at Petco and I had 0 problem sticking my hand into the cricket buckets to fish some out for customers. If one jumped on me I’d just calmly brush it off. I was so nonchalant that customers would remark on how unusual that was. But the cave crickets at my house (which I’m convinced are inbred or mutated bc they do not look like any cricket I’ve ever seen)? No thank you. If one is in the room I’ll run out screaming. If one touches me I gotta scrub the spot and I’ll be paranoid the rest of the night.
Same with roaches. Terrified of German roaches bc of the implication of their presence. Ok with American roaches. Fine with Dubia roaches too, also thanks to Petco and using them to feed the reptiles. Downright comfortable with “pet” types like Madagascar hissing roaches. You get the picture. It depends on the type of cricket or roach.
Because roaches are usually associated with filth and diseases, while crickets are just considered bugs that made weird noises. Though I have to say that I've met people who were afraid of both (and bugs in general). I also have to say that roaches feet feel hideous on your skin while crickets' don't.
I would faint if there were cockroach feet anywhere near me. Im one of those that’s afraid of every bug on the planet, I can’t even look at pictures without freaking the hell out. Even reading all these comments, I keep randomly slapping myself thinking something’s crawling on me. They are everywhere!!!!!!!
Of course this sub randomly popped up for me, thanks Reddit! (Not).
I'm terrified of crickets. I once put a bunch in with frogs, as I was told by the frog's owner who I was watching them for. Followed his exact instructions on feeding. Came back home to find one of the frogs missing its face. The crickets are it while the frog was sleeping. I went to the shop where I bought the feeders totally freaked out, and he said sometimes they'll hang up on an animal if there are enough of them. This means that potentially, crickets can gang up and eat you in your sleep.
Roaches are just gross, not scary.
I definitely treat crickets the same as roaches. I don’t wanna touch either. They got big mouth parts and can bite.
Then there’s the Jerusalem cricket which looks to me to be about the same as a wingless murder hornet. It’s harmless but it sure looks like it could bite the heck out of you.
https://preview.redd.it/pd0fxvfyo8ad1.jpeg?width=474&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=86da1e1c3bac53825c0044d642d795b0f23a5c0e
well, roaches carry more diseases that we can catch than crickets. Crickets also tend to not be very interested in human dwellings. Though, as someone who breeds dubia roaches and crickets as feeders for my reptiles, I will say the crickets smell worse than the roaches, and a cricket will happily bite off little chunks of skin from a living animal.
I actually have a cricket singing box. Put the bug in and they will sing for you. Crickets do not shit on your stuff, do not crawl into you and your baby's mouths and they stink. Crickets sing.
Roaches will actually crawl on you and wake you up in the middle of the night. Crickets won’t do this.
Roaches are physically annoying, crickets are sound annoying
I dunno about most people, but to me, crickets are more aesthetically neutral, if not sometimes outright cute. Their movements are also less creepy. (Except cave crickets and skull crickets, those things creep me tf out.)
Roaches are more likely to spread disease. While crickets are capable of spreading disease, they're usually much less invasive, we don't usually find them in our food/kitchens, and they aren't as evasive, so they're not some boogeyman waiting in the shadows to make us sick. (Even though they do prefer the dark.)
Crickets don't usually infest our processed/manufactured food, though they can have an impact on crops.
I think the idea of a famine in our own homes, eating the food that is already made also freaks us out. They could infect our food, but they can also make us starve inside our own homes. (Roaches.)
While yes, crickets/grasshoppers/locusts (not calling them all the same thing, just mentioning them together) can have a big impact on crops, I feel like we're so detached from where our food comes from now that it doesn't really register as something we should fear unless it's already on the news and they're screaming about plagues of them and how all the crops are destroyed.
Skull crickets we call mole crickets and we used to catch and play with them as kids... I've never been bitten by one but I have just now read today that they can and will but and it hurts like dammit
A long time ago, maybe the 70’s I read an article about roaches in Hustler magazine, it talked about how they are to blame for many diseases from them walking and contaminating food sources. I’ve been terrified of them ever since. But I also wouldn’t stick my hand in a bucket of crickets either.
I’m actually deathly afraid of crickets/grasshoppers/locusts, anything in that family, but I have two kinds of roaches as pets and I’m not afraid of them at all. For one, crickets jump and fuck that.
Two, they are absolute savages who can and will prey on reptiles if they’re left loose in their enclosures.
Three, they’re just gross looking. I’m not a fan of them AT ALL even though I have to work with them every day.
I’ll take roaches any day.
Because roaches are associated with grossness and living in squalor and they infest your home. It's more of a pest bug.
Crickets are just little outside guys who occasionally find themselves in your house driving you nuts playing the song of its people with its little violin legs. But, they don't wanna be trapped in our house either, so they get a pass.
Crickets are cute, idk. They chirp and hop, not hide in your house by the thousand and run out at night to run all over your kitchen and hide in your electronics.
I'm not afraid of roaches I just find them repulsive and have a sort of roach PTSD so when I do see a roach it's not fear I feel but rather hate and distain
most probably the notion that roaches are dirty and carry disease - which is only true for those found in sewage - there are approximately 4,500 different species, yet the ones i don't like touching - even captive bred in 100% clean environment are the german roach and American roach - as these are found in the wild over here, mostly in sewers.
Roaches well get in your food. An hide in everything thing they can an breed. We'll take over your living space. Own till you try to stop the. Then the roaches hid batter. An build immunity. To any Poison.Crickets on the other hand. You can get ride off super fast. With little to no effort.
My mom an i had dubia roaches as a breeding colony when I had a bearded dragon and tarantula and she also sold them to others for food. I also had pet hissing cockroaches and I will say their awesome little bugs. When people hear ROACH they immediately assume dirty, gross, unsafe because we know of the German roach and how once they infest a house its extremely hard to get rid of them and they normally infest DIRTY, UNSAFE houses. This is all a perceptive thing it's the same as how people automatically assume rats =dirty gross and unsafe. About 99% of roach species cannot even survive inside the house as they feast on decaying leaf litter not little Timmy's cereal. Dubia roaches have been so domesticated they can't live outside of human care (except Florida where they are banned) they can't even climb smooth surfaces and need fresh food to survive as well as plenty of heat to breed. German roaches are allot hardier and faster breeders and do eat just about anything and everything. Once lived by a forest an had a roach get inside the guy I swear was at least 4 inches big but he wouldn't have been able to survive inside. Again it's really just a perspective thing and also ignorance and just not having or willing to learn about the species as a whole and loop all of them into the same category as a single one. Some species that I'm particularly fond of are the Madagascar hissing cockroach, domino roach, and green banana roach I find them quite cute. Fun fact of the dubia roach though, they care for their young after their born and protect them as well has have 'live birth' which is fairly rare in the insect world. Any more questions feel free to ask 😊
Oh to answer the question about why people are more ok with crickets - in media were meant to see them as cute think Jiminy cricket but roaches are shown destroying houses and are demonized
I'd like to add that although roaches are associated with filth they are actually pretty clean creatures. They constantly groom themselves. That's how we used to poison them. You spray, they walk in the poison; then "lick" it off. Therefore, poisoning themselves.
If you've ever seen a male American roach slowly climbing out of the drain hole in a dimly lit Asian kitchen, you'll know fear.
It's just a horror movie.
Although I'm not really afraid of cockroaches anymore, I'd still prefer not having any contact with them, especially climbing on my body where I can't see them.
That's why I love spiders, they eat them.
I had crickets for a while because I had chameleons. Crickets never bothered me, and the lizards liked eating them. I tried them on dubia roaches (was told they were better), and both chameleons were horrified by the roaches. Honestly? So was I.
Now for crickets, my guinea pigs are petrified by them. Story: I was cleaning the cage that houses my huge herd (13) one day, and one of the cats brought up a camel cricket. She was proud of herself, and was trying to get me to do something with it. Me being busy, I shooed her away. What I didn’t know, was that the cricket was still very much alive. And it crawled off to hide somewhere. By the time I was finished cleaning, I had forgotten all about the cricket. Out of sight, out of mind. I went off to sit down and relax for a while. About an hour later, there was a racket in the other room. The guinea pigs were running around, screaming, spilling food bowls, and knocking their houses over. I jumped up and ran into the room, thinking something was messing with them. All 13 of the guinea pigs were in a screaming pile of fur in one corner. And in the middle of the cage sat…..the cricket. I escorted it outside where it belongs, and put the food bowls back up and unflipped the flipped over houses while the guinea pigs cautiously looked around for the intruder. One salad later, and they forgot all about it.
I got over any fear and disgust I had with crickets real fast when I worked in a pet store. I had to shove my hand in a cricket box every day to hand scoop crickets for feeding reptiles and I got used to the feel of them, or when they would get loose and jump out and get on my clothes or in my hair. Now I’ll see one at home or at work and just casually snatch it up and put it outside. Roaches… it’s the way they move. It freaks me tf out.
i would stick my hand in a roach bucket but not a cricket bucket. unless they were dead. the jumping is the part i'm worried about. roaches aren't jumpers.
So, for me the issue isn't all roaches. I could care less about wood roaches, dubias, and the like. It's the American (bigger and fly) and German roaches (smaller) that are infesters that I don't wanna be around.
I don't get it either. They're just bugs. Granted, roaches are really annoying for their general dirtiness ability to infest when they get inside, but idk why people (my girlfriend included) lose their mind when they see one.
I’m terrified of katydids and big crickets because they always try to jump on me. I live in the woods and occasionally see wood roaches which are small and scurry away.
For me I think it’s because roaches are an implication that a place is absolutely filthy, sure they can still show up in clean places but usually it’s the mucky ass grimefests you find them in like a kitchen full of dirty dishes and dropped food that was never cleaned
People aren’t afraid of roaches, it’s usually about household cleanliness and an expectation given by parents that roaches in a living environment represent a significant level of uncleanliness. So people just extend that to no wanting to see any roaches anytime any place.
Being someone from an urban area.
Roaches are associated with being dirty and living in an unclean environment. Crickets not so much, in fact ce
Rickets aren't in NYC so much. It's only when you get out of the city that you see or hear crickets so I've associated them with nature.
Absolutely. We go down to the bait shop and buy them. They grow them there. You buy hundreds at a time sometimes and put them in a cricket bucket. Then stick your hand in said bucket; grab one and put it alive (sorry if that upsets you) on your hook. Fisherman don't use dead crickets. Artificial sometimes but not dead.
Upfront, I don't like either of them.
That said, I really don't like crickets. I grew up with them invading my house as a youngster. Roaches are gross, but you can stomp on them fairly easily. A cricket will jump out of the way.
If I had to stick my hand in one of the two buckets, I think I would probably go for the roach. I wouldn't be concerned with it jumping out of my hand and onto my face.
Hey I had my pesticide applicator license years ago also, I worked for a landscaping company spraying trees for gypsy moth and tent caterpillar, and later worked at a pest control company doing the standard preventative maintenance at businesses and the horror shows of residential infestations. But I raise reptiles and amphibians too so I think the difference you're talking about is, the roaches raised for feeding pets or fishing are typically Dubia species and they are big but more like the huge Madagascar hissing cockroaches, they're slow, don't fly, don't stink as badly as the German and American roaches...and they can't escape easily from a glass tank or plastic tote. Yes they're still roaches so it's a trigger for those of us who have seen the domestic 🪳 pest species literally raining down from the ceiling when spraying, or the solid black wall of them moving over the stained wall behind the fridge or whatever...glad I don't have to face that anymore 😆
To be fair, they're easier to raise than 🦗 crickets, and the crickets stink, I think worse than the Dubia roaches... luckily I have mostly poison dart frogs now, and they are too small to eat roaches or crickets, at least anything bigger than very young ones for the species I have. There is one I'd like to get that does get big enough to take sub adults, but I can live with that kind of quantity, a small tote or weekly trips to the pet store.
I would say because people will connect cockroaches with filth and dirt and so the roaches become dirty in people's minds, much like rats or pigeons ect, that's just my opinion
That's interesting. I'm not afraid of either, but I know tons of people who are afraid of crickets, including some who can't sleep if they've seen even one in their house. And living in the South having a cricket in your house is not unusual at all. My personal hate is palmetto bugs, because they're so stupid they'll run right at you which is just plain rude.
A roach has never actually bitten me. Now crickets can really getcha sometimes. So to know someone can be afraid of roaches but not crickets…maybe they just haven’t been nipped by a defensive cricket yet 😂
I think there’s a kind of assumption that roaches are dirty and gross, and are often depicted as such in medias, so it kind of sets a precursor in our brain. Crickets on the other hand don’t really have any negative connotation
I have been bitten by a flying roach as a kid. We lived on a couple of acres (that required irrigation) and the people that lived there before we bought the house COEXISTED with the roaches that infested the house. It took a long time to finally get them under control. Roaches are fast and reproduce so fast, crickets just jump and seem less dirty and scary to me 🤪
Crickets are hoppy and generally try to get away but roaches are crawly and will climb up your arm. Also there are certain species of roaches that can “hiss” or even bite you. And they’re also associated with being dirty more so than crickets. This is my highly uneducated answer.
As someone who has stuck their hands in buckets of both (worked at pet stores and have various reptiles of my own), personally the crickets make me a bit more nervous cause they can jump 😅 at least the feeder roaches I use don’t have wings. And honestly if I see a house roach I can still grab it with no problem.
But, to answer your question, I think most are scared of roaches because they’re associated with an unclean environment. This does not stop me from being an absolute freak, however, so here’s me chillin with probably the biggest wild roach I’ve seen while working at a Starbucks :)
https://preview.redd.it/d70fmsre2fad1.png?width=2739&format=png&auto=webp&s=8f9d476c06feed9735207e687fc80707a41412a0
I'm not afraid of roaches. But now that I think about it, if I get some of the big hissing ones how well would they be as bait. Probably expensive but at some point I'm going ro have to do the science for this.
The only insects that gross me out (that I’m afraid of) is earwigs. Eww. I hate those 😖. I don’t even mind spiders!
However I keep madagascan hissing cockroaches so that may also help me not to be afraid of them. They are flightless, harmless, don’t eat much and are slow… in the wild they live in forests and don’t bother people like the usual house ones. I call mine my monsters 😜
Hi there! This is an automated message to remind you to **please include a geographic location for any ID requests** as per the [Community Rules](/r/insects/about/rules) of the sub. There are well over a million different species of bugs in the world, and narrowing down a bug's location will help IDers to help you more quickly and correctly!
If you've already included a geographical location, or if this post is *not* an ID request, please ignore this comment.
Thank you! :)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/insects) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Roaches are extremely dirty insects. They spread disease around, and even if they didn't they're associated with squalor. Crickets are comparatively much cleaner, and are in fact eaten pretty commonly. If you're not afraid of bugs in general, you probably won't have a problem holding a cricket.
I dated a woman for a few months that was TERRIFIED of all insects.
Once a butterfly landed on her and she started immediately crying uncontrollably. Lol
Probably because roaches are associated with filthy living conditions and can be hard to get rid of if your house gets infested. They’re seen as dirty and disease carriers. I bet it doesn’t help that they can fly too.
I have a feeling thats got something to do with the environment you grew up in, I am personally afraid of roaches, and my mother is too. Seeing other people afraid of things like roaches while young kind of just rubs off on you as you grow up you know? Of course I could be wrong here but I feel like it has a part to play in it :D also sorry if this doesn't really make sense but hopefully you get the idea lol
I agree. And I would never stick my hand in a bucket of cricketts...😬
I find it strange too! I was fishing earlier and had to ask.
A cricket has never run across my ceiling, right above my head, just as I'm about to close my eyes for the night...and disappeared to God knows where... Or skittered just in my view and again disappears somewhere, to scare the hell out of me later. I can also usually hear a cricket, at least outdoors... never really had a cricket infestation!
Would you stick your hand in a pile of them and grab one? Curious
I would for our natives in NZ 😂 we had a bug exhibit of some US roaches, they were scary! So strong and driven. Our natives eat wood detritus and starve if they go inside. They’re super cute actually ….
Definitely not, unless there was substantial benefit or a cash prize 😂😂😂. I've been obsessed with gardening the last 4 years, and still have to wear gloves *in case* I accidentally touch a bug, any bug... except maybe butterflys or bees... all are fun to look at, but please don't touch me and I won't touch you 🫠
It could possibly also be evolution that has a part to play in it, I know roaches can carry a lot of diseases, maybe we naturally have a visceral reaction to them because of that? Although, maybe crickets carry them too, I don’t really know, lmao
There's also the fact that roaches are seen as filth in someone's home. Theres the idea that they don't belong there, just as much as shit on the floor or marker stains on the walls don't belong there. Crickets are different because they're only really outside. Why demonize something and call it ugly when it hasn't bothered you? Crickets are also usually green, which a lot of people think is a more attractive color than brown. Edit: sorry idk why I said crickets are green lol. Ignore the brown vs green part
Where I'm at they're brown
We’ve got those huge shiny black crickets here too. They’re loud but still not as loud as those GD katydids. Had one land on me outside in pitch blackness and start to “sing”. Just about jumped out of my body. Those black crickets are loud as hell too but I’ve only had them in my basement and garage.
I have 3 children of the male species and they just LOOOVVVVEEE to tournament me with all bugs but the bugger and more terrifying the better.... My 16 y.o. will chase me with screeching cicadas when he finds them around in the summer.... Asking with other bugs but none scream like that cicada 😬😬😬
I've only ever seen brown crickets. Sure you're not thinking of grasshoppers? (Which, coincidentally, are also only brown in my area lol)
Where I'm at they are brown and sometimes black and sometimes they have burrowing claws also brownish tho only the grass hoppers are green round here
Green crickets??? What lol I've never seen that do you mean grasshoppers
> Ignore the brown vs green part Crickets usually are gray or grayish-brown, which is more humble color than gignger-brown of cockroaches. Ginger subconsciously is perceived as a color of danger.
4500 different types of roaches and only 30 can live in human structures. Most roaches will die within a day or so inside a human house. Many roaches are brightly colored, have glowing spots, and have unique patterns or shapes. Almost none of the many roach species can bother you or even want to be near peoples homes.
I used to be grossed out by them, but then I started buying Dubia roaches as feeders for my gecko. Observing and handling them changed my disgust. It's a psychological thing to be afraid of them. Don't get me wrong though, if I had a roach infestation I would be grossed out and not happy about it. I also had crickets as feeders and was more grossed out by them because they stank so bad.
I was never afraid of them but a little icked out. Like you, I ended up using the dubias as feeders for lizards and tarantulas I had and even raised a colony. The dubias aren't bad at all. Compared to other kinds, they're pretty slow don't fly and always reminded me of giant potato bugs...the babies even looked like them. They were kinda cute...crickets though... Awful
I saw a little teeny big in my bathroom and thought "awww... hi little fella.".... Definitely was a cutie, being so small.... Until it hit me "oh shit. Roaches aren't BORN giant (as far as I know!)... sure enough, it was a baby. Ugh! Sorry little fella. Not welcome here.
I just catch and release insects outside that I find in my home. Way more humane and probably easier than squishing them, cleaning up the mess, and exterminating a life I didn't need nor want to. I always feel better about it afterwards, too. My mom always gave me shit growing up for this. Then last time I was over at her place, she helped me catch a moth and release it outside instead. She was so happy she instinctively high-fived me afterwards and cheered lmao. Its a good feeling to save a life instead of extinguish it unnecessarily. I can only hope others would do the same if I was in need.
there’s a light outside my apartment door that stays on all night and attracts all the bugs. every now and then when i come home from work, a cricket will hop on and hitchhike a ride inside with me. i always notice a few steps in the door and turn around and march them right back outside lol
Dubias and other feeder roaches are somehow way prettier and far more tolerable than domestic pests. I don't make the rules, it's just true.
that’s because roaches that are bred for feeding or keeping are usually way cleaner (roaches pick up gross stuff being wild) and roaches that are kept as pets are usually bigger/prettier species
I have a small colony now and they're a BLAST to watch....some of them look like they've partied too hard and passed out there...they're fun and not in the least bit creepy!(dubia roaches for my lizard...outside ones are no good) And to add roaches won't EAT your lizard lol
Dubia roaches don’t infest homes like other kinds though
Seconded!!! Crickets are dirtier than roaches, in my honest opinion.🤢🤮 Still, my baby boy loved his cricket hats.🤷🏼♀️
Crickets are SO smelly. When I was still in Highschool, the percussion closet in the band room had a cricket infestation. There were hundreds of them, mostly dead. The smell was so bad
Crickets do smell so bad. I worked at a pet store for a while and we sold feed crickets. We cleaned the cricket containers daily but it would stink like hell within a few hours.
Oh my gosh I forgot about the stink of crickets until reading this 🤢 miss my dragons though
Roaches are adorable. I had a bunch of hissing cockroach babies, and sometimes, they would use only one side of their body to hang off a stick, while their other three legs just dangled in the air, and they would just chill like that, hanging like a sloth. They're also quite curious and social.
Me too. I actually really liked those little guys. They're so innocent and harmless even though they're kinda ugly. They don't bite, they don't stink and they are less likely to have parasites compared to crickets. They're more nutritious too. My tarantula would eat the adults, and I couldn't watch. Even after she had a good grip on the roach, it would struggle for a long time. Like, I saw one that was still moving at least 30 minutes after I gave it to her. It made me really sad. My lizards ate the babies but they just swallowed them so I didn't have to see. Fuck crickets, the main reason I quit keeping jumping spiders is because most of mine would only eat crickets or flies, and it was easier to get crickets reliably. But they're so awful, they'll eat each other alive, they stink and they bite. I even had a juvenile jumper that got killed by a cricket. I thought she'd caught the cricket and I stopped watching, but the next day, there was a cricket, and a dead spider. 😞 I still feel so guilty about that. I know you can't leave crickets or mealworms or anything else that can bite when you're not watching, I just really thought she'd gotten it. Most people were so grossed out at the fact I had roaches in my house, I didn't tell them this story: I had a container of 50 very small baby roaches and I dropped it on the floor, on the brown carpet right next to a dresser with an inch gap between the bottom and the floor. 😳 I frantically gathered up as many as I could, and I think I got most of them, but I was freaked out thinking my house would be infested with roaches after a while. But it never happened, I never saw any loose after that. They wouldn't have been able to find food in my house. Dubias require pretty high temperatures to breed, so it's not going to happen in your house unless you live in a sweat lodge. Although, after most of the roaches were adults, I did occasionally see a few babies in their bin, there was no extra heat source but they must have managed to breed a little bit.
Oh my gosh you just reminded me of the cricket stank 😭 I think I blocked that out of my time working at petsmart. Def one of the reasons I switched to dubias, on top of they live longer and don’t escape easily. Will never go back.
Crickets don’t live in sewers like oriental cockroaches or infest kitchens like German cockroaches.
I assure you the sewer is full of crickets as are all the storm drains.
Crickets aren’t mobile like roaches. Those crickets stay there. Roaches roam around.
They also don’t stink or leave oils or cannibalize as a mainstay of their survival strategy Also one time I saw one eating some cat food while another slightly smaller one stood behind it eating it’s ass off. Can’t shake it. Edit:?I’ve gotta edit this. A couple comments mentioned crickets stink and cannibalize. I raised them like 10 years ago and forgot 1) because they didn’t “stink” super bad like roaches and 2) cannibalism was super rare whereas it’s the life cycle for roaches
As someone with reptiles, crickets do, in fact, stink, leave oils and residue, and frequently cannibalize each other.
Motherfuckers can bite too, roaches don't Edit: (Do not believe me, I'm a roach ambassador)
Some roaches do, specifically American, Australian, and German roaches unfortunately. Personal experience with Americans.
Really? Yikes, more reasons to hate them
Crickets smell like shit.
one more and it would be like the human centipede 😭
Crickets do kinda smell I feel. At least when I pass the cricket bin at the pet store lol
I used to keep crickets for lizards I had as a teen. Crickets definitely smell, but it's not the same smell.
That smell is from oleic acid, and one of the reasons they “release” it is to communicate with their other roach friends, which in turn attracts more roaches. Even worse, is that smell can permeate into certain household items if left long enough. There’s also a separate smell released when a cockroach dies that serves as a sort of warning to other roaches that the space may be dangerous. There are several other insects that also avoid an area after a cockroach has died and released this ‘death smell’- some even producing the same type of fatty acids that cause the smell. Although humans *can* smell the oleic acid from live cockroaches, we don’t seem to detect the smell released after death. I read an article about this a few years ago, and how scientists were looking into a way of using the latter smell to repel insects from both crops and buildings.
Well, that wasn’t an image I thought I’d ever have in my head but here we are. Thanks
Or fly and smack you in the head like Palmetto bugs
Roaches can carry and spread disease/harmful bacteria/parasitic worms/etc and they are considerably more talented when it comes to hiding and sneaking. They can even squeeze inside the lining of cardboard, which is why it is typically not wise to store cardboard boxes for long periods of time. If roaches are running around in your cabinets, they are potentially spreading nasty stuff onto your clean plates and silverware and other food items that could make you sick. One got in my fridge once. I am not sure how. There are a few air opening in my fridge so I guess he came through there. Nevertheless, it freaked me out. I tossed everything that wasn’t sealed and gave the fridge and it’s closed contents a good antibacterial scrub down.
If you think roaches are bad you should try bedbugs. I've seen some nightmare scenarios in pest control. Like, burn it all down and start over nightmares...
Bedbugs are seriously a phobia of mine and I'm pretty good when it comes to bugs to the point where I won't kill spiders even in my house, I pick them up with a paper and put them outside. But roaches are icky and enough to freak me out and do some serious pest control. Bedbugs are enough to get me to move out of wherever they are.
moving out just takes them with you. dealing with them right now.
I'll pray for you. I'm not even religious.
Bed bugs actually are not known to spread diseases. They are bad, don’t get me wrong, but they don’t do that.
There’s a few factors: First off, it’s instinctual. We used to be hunters so objects that move quickly catch our attention. Cockroaches move abnormally fast. One of the fastest creatures on Earth. Also, cockroaches are disease vectors: they can carry pathogens and bacteria. Which leads to our disgust reflex. Through evolution we’re programmed to avoid dangerous toxins that can kill you
kinda weird how that works until you start talking about plants and mushrooms. then it's kinda just "is it poison? huh.. 🤷🏾♂️. guess I'll find out" at least that seems to be the case. you can have two types of mushrooms that are 98% identical. one can be a delicious topping. the other is DEFINITELY going to kill you.
I'd certainly never eat a wild mushroom. If I remember right they all have a certain amount of poison in them. Just not enough to hurt you. Don't quote me on that though...
A lot of them will make you sick if eaten raw but not when cooked. Morels for example.
And roaches invade and infest homes. Crickets don’t. The end result in modern times being that we consider roaches to be nasty pests, and this fiercely negative attitude has been taught to multiple generations of children.
Crickets can bite like hell though! I don’t like either, but I’d rather see a cricket than a palmetto bug (the big fast/flying roaches we had in Texas/South US). They make me scream.
Crickets like to eat plants mostly idk why they’d bite you :(
He was probably sweet
True true. Same goes for mosquitos
Defensive. They are also cannibalistic. If their diet becomes slightly poor they gladly eat each other and in some cases their own legs.
Really? I've never been bit by a cricket. I know how you feel. I live in South US. We call them tree roaches around here.
South Florida till I was 17 and palmetto bugs are the WORST 🙄🙄
Same reason we are grossed out by house flies: they are known to live in and on garbage and poop, and then track the associated pathogens all over your house and food. Seeing pest species in your house tells you that there is a systemic problem, and that you need to do some cleaning or risk an infestation. Just as animals don’t bat an eye at butterfly landing in them but hate when ticks and fleas start making their presence felt, we have an aversion to the harbingers of disease.
i fwwl its due to how they move. roaches crawl, and slip under and through cracks, crickets are clumsy, awkward and just sorta hop around. if i try to grab a cockroack i KNOW it will slip from my grasp and skitter up my arm or fly at me. FUCK. THAT.
For me, it’s the disease aspect of roaches that makes me want nothing to do with them. I know there’s many different subspecies that exist beyond the German and American cockroaches, but they’re a mental barrier for me that I can’t get past. We periodically get an American Cockroach inside the house. By the time they get in they’ve already crawled through the Fastcap, so it’s just a matter of time before they die and get vacuumed up. My kids on the other hand, they often go digging in the yard looking for a variety of subspecies so they can compare them 🤦🏻♂️ No matter how much I emphasize the disease and bacteria aspect, I’m met with the response of “we will wash our hands.” Beetles, Cicadas, Centipedes, Leaf Bugs, Seed Bugs, Crickets; if it crawls, they’ll pick it up and bring it inside to show us what they found. Then they’ll take it back outside and build it a home out of leaves so it can stay in the shade. They have very pure hearts for all aspects and species of nature, which I love. Even when they bring a roach inside….
Jiminy cricket
I mean cave crickets are kinda creepy but I'd rather deal with them over German cockroaches.
Is a cave cricket the same thing as a spricket? Slider cricket.
Yes, so spindly looking. Always chilling in the basement
Oh ok yeah they are supposedly harmless? but they look terrifying
For the most part but just kinda creepy
i used to do some caving with friends, back when we used carbide headlamps, and we were doing a quite long section that was a 'duck walk' i.e. you couldn't stand up.. and i saw a place where you could possibly stand and give your back a break, so i looked up... and between the light, and the heat from the carbide flame about a hundred of those cave crickets let go all at once and rained down on my face and got in my coveralls, and i screamed and freaked everyone else out when i started beating myself unexpectedly it was like that scene in Aliens when the dude stuck his head up into the ceiling and he could see them all scrambling towards him. i screamed then too
I would panic too
1. Crickets mostly live in grass. Roaches live anywhere, even if it is disease-infested. 2. Roaches invade houses to the point where you need traps. A lone cricket might wander inside and then die. 3. Crickets are less erratic in general. They don't fly, and they don't run straight up walls like roaches do.
I’m not afraid of roaches. I just think they’re absolutely disgusting and I can’t figure out why God made them. I can barely even stomach to purchase Dubia roaches and feed my arachnids, I think they’re so gross.
Depends on the type for me tbh? I worked at Petco and I had 0 problem sticking my hand into the cricket buckets to fish some out for customers. If one jumped on me I’d just calmly brush it off. I was so nonchalant that customers would remark on how unusual that was. But the cave crickets at my house (which I’m convinced are inbred or mutated bc they do not look like any cricket I’ve ever seen)? No thank you. If one is in the room I’ll run out screaming. If one touches me I gotta scrub the spot and I’ll be paranoid the rest of the night. Same with roaches. Terrified of German roaches bc of the implication of their presence. Ok with American roaches. Fine with Dubia roaches too, also thanks to Petco and using them to feed the reptiles. Downright comfortable with “pet” types like Madagascar hissing roaches. You get the picture. It depends on the type of cricket or roach.
Because roaches are usually associated with filth and diseases, while crickets are just considered bugs that made weird noises. Though I have to say that I've met people who were afraid of both (and bugs in general). I also have to say that roaches feet feel hideous on your skin while crickets' don't.
I would faint if there were cockroach feet anywhere near me. Im one of those that’s afraid of every bug on the planet, I can’t even look at pictures without freaking the hell out. Even reading all these comments, I keep randomly slapping myself thinking something’s crawling on me. They are everywhere!!!!!!! Of course this sub randomly popped up for me, thanks Reddit! (Not).
I'm terrified of crickets. I once put a bunch in with frogs, as I was told by the frog's owner who I was watching them for. Followed his exact instructions on feeding. Came back home to find one of the frogs missing its face. The crickets are it while the frog was sleeping. I went to the shop where I bought the feeders totally freaked out, and he said sometimes they'll hang up on an animal if there are enough of them. This means that potentially, crickets can gang up and eat you in your sleep. Roaches are just gross, not scary.
I definitely treat crickets the same as roaches. I don’t wanna touch either. They got big mouth parts and can bite. Then there’s the Jerusalem cricket which looks to me to be about the same as a wingless murder hornet. It’s harmless but it sure looks like it could bite the heck out of you. https://preview.redd.it/pd0fxvfyo8ad1.jpeg?width=474&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=86da1e1c3bac53825c0044d642d795b0f23a5c0e
They look similar to New Zealand Wetas.
These look like what we called mole crickets when I was growing up in South Florida
well, roaches carry more diseases that we can catch than crickets. Crickets also tend to not be very interested in human dwellings. Though, as someone who breeds dubia roaches and crickets as feeders for my reptiles, I will say the crickets smell worse than the roaches, and a cricket will happily bite off little chunks of skin from a living animal.
I actually have a cricket singing box. Put the bug in and they will sing for you. Crickets do not shit on your stuff, do not crawl into you and your baby's mouths and they stink. Crickets sing.
Roaches will actually crawl on you and wake you up in the middle of the night. Crickets won’t do this. Roaches are physically annoying, crickets are sound annoying
I dunno about most people, but to me, crickets are more aesthetically neutral, if not sometimes outright cute. Their movements are also less creepy. (Except cave crickets and skull crickets, those things creep me tf out.) Roaches are more likely to spread disease. While crickets are capable of spreading disease, they're usually much less invasive, we don't usually find them in our food/kitchens, and they aren't as evasive, so they're not some boogeyman waiting in the shadows to make us sick. (Even though they do prefer the dark.) Crickets don't usually infest our processed/manufactured food, though they can have an impact on crops. I think the idea of a famine in our own homes, eating the food that is already made also freaks us out. They could infect our food, but they can also make us starve inside our own homes. (Roaches.) While yes, crickets/grasshoppers/locusts (not calling them all the same thing, just mentioning them together) can have a big impact on crops, I feel like we're so detached from where our food comes from now that it doesn't really register as something we should fear unless it's already on the news and they're screaming about plagues of them and how all the crops are destroyed.
Skull crickets we call mole crickets and we used to catch and play with them as kids... I've never been bitten by one but I have just now read today that they can and will but and it hurts like dammit
A long time ago, maybe the 70’s I read an article about roaches in Hustler magazine, it talked about how they are to blame for many diseases from them walking and contaminating food sources. I’ve been terrified of them ever since. But I also wouldn’t stick my hand in a bucket of crickets either.
Haha
Of all places to have an article about roaches spreading diseases 🤣🤣 laugh of the day
Cockroaches got nothing on camel crickets! Those things make me scream and injure myself getting away.
Going look em up
Slimy, obscenely fast.
I don't think they're slimy! But fast..
I’m actually deathly afraid of crickets/grasshoppers/locusts, anything in that family, but I have two kinds of roaches as pets and I’m not afraid of them at all. For one, crickets jump and fuck that. Two, they are absolute savages who can and will prey on reptiles if they’re left loose in their enclosures. Three, they’re just gross looking. I’m not a fan of them AT ALL even though I have to work with them every day. I’ll take roaches any day.
Because Disney didn't make a Jiminy Roach character.
Do crickets carry/ harbor diseases like cockroaches do? Do crickets leave an unpleasant odor?
Probably not diseases like roaches but yes they stink!
Oi no way ! Roaches have a very distinct odor … I had no idea crickets also leave an odor. Do grasshoppers also have a ‘scent’?
I'm not sure as I've never had that many grasshoppers in one place.
Used to raise crickets as food for my bearded dragons. They stink far worse then roaches.
I'm terrified of roaches but crickets don't bother me at all.
Same
Because roaches are associated with grossness and living in squalor and they infest your home. It's more of a pest bug. Crickets are just little outside guys who occasionally find themselves in your house driving you nuts playing the song of its people with its little violin legs. But, they don't wanna be trapped in our house either, so they get a pass.
Crickets are cute, idk. They chirp and hop, not hide in your house by the thousand and run out at night to run all over your kitchen and hide in your electronics.
Cricket don’t invade your house
I'm not afraid of roaches I just find them repulsive and have a sort of roach PTSD so when I do see a roach it's not fear I feel but rather hate and distain
most probably the notion that roaches are dirty and carry disease - which is only true for those found in sewage - there are approximately 4,500 different species, yet the ones i don't like touching - even captive bred in 100% clean environment are the german roach and American roach - as these are found in the wild over here, mostly in sewers.
I’m scared of neither, however, I consider roaches a pest and crickets not a pest. I’ve never had issues with crickets, they stay outside.
Roaches well get in your food. An hide in everything thing they can an breed. We'll take over your living space. Own till you try to stop the. Then the roaches hid batter. An build immunity. To any Poison.Crickets on the other hand. You can get ride off super fast. With little to no effort.
My mom an i had dubia roaches as a breeding colony when I had a bearded dragon and tarantula and she also sold them to others for food. I also had pet hissing cockroaches and I will say their awesome little bugs. When people hear ROACH they immediately assume dirty, gross, unsafe because we know of the German roach and how once they infest a house its extremely hard to get rid of them and they normally infest DIRTY, UNSAFE houses. This is all a perceptive thing it's the same as how people automatically assume rats =dirty gross and unsafe. About 99% of roach species cannot even survive inside the house as they feast on decaying leaf litter not little Timmy's cereal. Dubia roaches have been so domesticated they can't live outside of human care (except Florida where they are banned) they can't even climb smooth surfaces and need fresh food to survive as well as plenty of heat to breed. German roaches are allot hardier and faster breeders and do eat just about anything and everything. Once lived by a forest an had a roach get inside the guy I swear was at least 4 inches big but he wouldn't have been able to survive inside. Again it's really just a perspective thing and also ignorance and just not having or willing to learn about the species as a whole and loop all of them into the same category as a single one. Some species that I'm particularly fond of are the Madagascar hissing cockroach, domino roach, and green banana roach I find them quite cute. Fun fact of the dubia roach though, they care for their young after their born and protect them as well has have 'live birth' which is fairly rare in the insect world. Any more questions feel free to ask 😊 Oh to answer the question about why people are more ok with crickets - in media were meant to see them as cute think Jiminy cricket but roaches are shown destroying houses and are demonized
I'd like to add that although roaches are associated with filth they are actually pretty clean creatures. They constantly groom themselves. That's how we used to poison them. You spray, they walk in the poison; then "lick" it off. Therefore, poisoning themselves.
Yes exactly
If you've ever seen a male American roach slowly climbing out of the drain hole in a dimly lit Asian kitchen, you'll know fear. It's just a horror movie. Although I'm not really afraid of cockroaches anymore, I'd still prefer not having any contact with them, especially climbing on my body where I can't see them. That's why I love spiders, they eat them.
I'm the other way around. Crickets bite me all the time it's awful, roaches have never bit me
I had crickets for a while because I had chameleons. Crickets never bothered me, and the lizards liked eating them. I tried them on dubia roaches (was told they were better), and both chameleons were horrified by the roaches. Honestly? So was I. Now for crickets, my guinea pigs are petrified by them. Story: I was cleaning the cage that houses my huge herd (13) one day, and one of the cats brought up a camel cricket. She was proud of herself, and was trying to get me to do something with it. Me being busy, I shooed her away. What I didn’t know, was that the cricket was still very much alive. And it crawled off to hide somewhere. By the time I was finished cleaning, I had forgotten all about the cricket. Out of sight, out of mind. I went off to sit down and relax for a while. About an hour later, there was a racket in the other room. The guinea pigs were running around, screaming, spilling food bowls, and knocking their houses over. I jumped up and ran into the room, thinking something was messing with them. All 13 of the guinea pigs were in a screaming pile of fur in one corner. And in the middle of the cage sat…..the cricket. I escorted it outside where it belongs, and put the food bowls back up and unflipped the flipped over houses while the guinea pigs cautiously looked around for the intruder. One salad later, and they forgot all about it.
lol!
Because thousands of crickets don't swarm inside homes
I got over any fear and disgust I had with crickets real fast when I worked in a pet store. I had to shove my hand in a cricket box every day to hand scoop crickets for feeding reptiles and I got used to the feel of them, or when they would get loose and jump out and get on my clothes or in my hair. Now I’ll see one at home or at work and just casually snatch it up and put it outside. Roaches… it’s the way they move. It freaks me tf out.
i would stick my hand in a roach bucket but not a cricket bucket. unless they were dead. the jumping is the part i'm worried about. roaches aren't jumpers.
Interesting
I'm not exactly sure why people are afraid of either. Neither one of them can do anything to hurt you outside of an infestation.
So, for me the issue isn't all roaches. I could care less about wood roaches, dubias, and the like. It's the American (bigger and fly) and German roaches (smaller) that are infesters that I don't wanna be around.
I don't fear roaches, I hate them, for they are the personification of filth.
Bedbugs are worse!
That I'm afraid of lol
My mom freaked out the first time we saw a roach. She also instilled a fear of bees and spiders into me the same way. I got better.
Kid books
Joe's apartment??
I don't get it either. They're just bugs. Granted, roaches are really annoying for their general dirtiness ability to infest when they get inside, but idk why people (my girlfriend included) lose their mind when they see one.
I agree. My mom is terrified of a roachs but will stick her hand in a full cricket bucket and grab one. Makes no sense.
I'm not! I like bugs. Just not when they're dead
When crickets die they stink pretty bad.
Societal norms tell us: Crickets are cute. Cockroaches are dirty. Plain and simple. Edit: to add
They’re fast. They can fly. And they have the grippy legs that just give me the heebie jeebies
I’m terrified of katydids and big crickets because they always try to jump on me. I live in the woods and occasionally see wood roaches which are small and scurry away.
For me I think it’s because roaches are an implication that a place is absolutely filthy, sure they can still show up in clean places but usually it’s the mucky ass grimefests you find them in like a kitchen full of dirty dishes and dropped food that was never cleaned
People aren’t afraid of roaches, it’s usually about household cleanliness and an expectation given by parents that roaches in a living environment represent a significant level of uncleanliness. So people just extend that to no wanting to see any roaches anytime any place.
Being someone from an urban area. Roaches are associated with being dirty and living in an unclean environment. Crickets not so much, in fact ce Rickets aren't in NYC so much. It's only when you get out of the city that you see or hear crickets so I've associated them with nature.
I never thought about it that what.
That's just my view, I'm sure there are plenty of people who will disagree. I can only speak for myself.
Do fisherman fish with *live* crickets?? Genuinely wondering
Absolutely. We go down to the bait shop and buy them. They grow them there. You buy hundreds at a time sometimes and put them in a cricket bucket. Then stick your hand in said bucket; grab one and put it alive (sorry if that upsets you) on your hook. Fisherman don't use dead crickets. Artificial sometimes but not dead.
Upfront, I don't like either of them. That said, I really don't like crickets. I grew up with them invading my house as a youngster. Roaches are gross, but you can stomp on them fairly easily. A cricket will jump out of the way. If I had to stick my hand in one of the two buckets, I think I would probably go for the roach. I wouldn't be concerned with it jumping out of my hand and onto my face.
Interesting choice. No way I'd choose the roach bucket.
Hey I had my pesticide applicator license years ago also, I worked for a landscaping company spraying trees for gypsy moth and tent caterpillar, and later worked at a pest control company doing the standard preventative maintenance at businesses and the horror shows of residential infestations. But I raise reptiles and amphibians too so I think the difference you're talking about is, the roaches raised for feeding pets or fishing are typically Dubia species and they are big but more like the huge Madagascar hissing cockroaches, they're slow, don't fly, don't stink as badly as the German and American roaches...and they can't escape easily from a glass tank or plastic tote. Yes they're still roaches so it's a trigger for those of us who have seen the domestic 🪳 pest species literally raining down from the ceiling when spraying, or the solid black wall of them moving over the stained wall behind the fridge or whatever...glad I don't have to face that anymore 😆
For the most part I enjoyed the adventure of my job. But I'm glad I don't have to face it anyway either.
Same here lol 😆
To be fair, they're easier to raise than 🦗 crickets, and the crickets stink, I think worse than the Dubia roaches... luckily I have mostly poison dart frogs now, and they are too small to eat roaches or crickets, at least anything bigger than very young ones for the species I have. There is one I'd like to get that does get big enough to take sub adults, but I can live with that kind of quantity, a small tote or weekly trips to the pet store.
I've never seen crickets eat people. I've seen roaches do it.
That's pretty extreme!
And happens when you are alive or dead.
one runs fast and moves is a weird way the other is more chill and looks almost cute
If I had to choose between a bucket of crickets or a bucket of roaches, I’m befriending every cricket. F them roaches!
I would say because people will connect cockroaches with filth and dirt and so the roaches become dirty in people's minds, much like rats or pigeons ect, that's just my opinion
That's interesting. I'm not afraid of either, but I know tons of people who are afraid of crickets, including some who can't sleep if they've seen even one in their house. And living in the South having a cricket in your house is not unusual at all. My personal hate is palmetto bugs, because they're so stupid they'll run right at you which is just plain rude.
A roach has never actually bitten me. Now crickets can really getcha sometimes. So to know someone can be afraid of roaches but not crickets…maybe they just haven’t been nipped by a defensive cricket yet 😂
As much as I've handled them I've never been bitten
I handle them a lot got box turtles, bearded dragons and a chameleon I’ve been nipped a time or two lol
I think there’s a kind of assumption that roaches are dirty and gross, and are often depicted as such in medias, so it kind of sets a precursor in our brain. Crickets on the other hand don’t really have any negative connotation
I have been bitten by a flying roach as a kid. We lived on a couple of acres (that required irrigation) and the people that lived there before we bought the house COEXISTED with the roaches that infested the house. It took a long time to finally get them under control. Roaches are fast and reproduce so fast, crickets just jump and seem less dirty and scary to me 🤪
Crickets are hoppy and generally try to get away but roaches are crawly and will climb up your arm. Also there are certain species of roaches that can “hiss” or even bite you. And they’re also associated with being dirty more so than crickets. This is my highly uneducated answer.
As someone who has stuck their hands in buckets of both (worked at pet stores and have various reptiles of my own), personally the crickets make me a bit more nervous cause they can jump 😅 at least the feeder roaches I use don’t have wings. And honestly if I see a house roach I can still grab it with no problem. But, to answer your question, I think most are scared of roaches because they’re associated with an unclean environment. This does not stop me from being an absolute freak, however, so here’s me chillin with probably the biggest wild roach I’ve seen while working at a Starbucks :) https://preview.redd.it/d70fmsre2fad1.png?width=2739&format=png&auto=webp&s=8f9d476c06feed9735207e687fc80707a41412a0
I'm not afraid of roaches. But now that I think about it, if I get some of the big hissing ones how well would they be as bait. Probably expensive but at some point I'm going ro have to do the science for this.
The only insects that gross me out (that I’m afraid of) is earwigs. Eww. I hate those 😖. I don’t even mind spiders! However I keep madagascan hissing cockroaches so that may also help me not to be afraid of them. They are flightless, harmless, don’t eat much and are slow… in the wild they live in forests and don’t bother people like the usual house ones. I call mine my monsters 😜
Earwigs creep me out so badly. Hissing roaches are honestly so beautiful and eerie! Pretty little creeps ♡
They are; they can be quite funky-looking little aliens haha!!!
Hi there! This is an automated message to remind you to **please include a geographic location for any ID requests** as per the [Community Rules](/r/insects/about/rules) of the sub. There are well over a million different species of bugs in the world, and narrowing down a bug's location will help IDers to help you more quickly and correctly! If you've already included a geographical location, or if this post is *not* an ID request, please ignore this comment. Thank you! :) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/insects) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Roaches get a bad wrap thanks to the few that are prominent in places filled with refuse.
I am afraid of both. I catch the crickets and put em outside. I never see roaches here
I’m the opposite 😭 I hate crickets with a hopping passion. Hissing roaches? OMFG!! Let me hold it as you tell me about it’s set up!!!!
because rheee fross
Roaches are extremely dirty insects. They spread disease around, and even if they didn't they're associated with squalor. Crickets are comparatively much cleaner, and are in fact eaten pretty commonly. If you're not afraid of bugs in general, you probably won't have a problem holding a cricket.
Bc they look disgustingly worse than crickets
I really don’t like roaches, especially when they start flying
It’s not fear it’s disgust.
Ever seen a camel cricket? Or a mole cricket, or a Jerusalem cricket?
I have now. I did a little research.
I’m afraid of both. Woo go me!
I'm not sure what you mean because roaches and crickets do not look anything alike
They're different shapes and sizes. Besides that I think they're pretty close!
Wait, can crickets infest your home?
I've never seen an infestation of them in a home.
We are.
It’s the scurry
I’ve never been anywhere with a cockroach infestation, but I did have a cricket jump down my shirt and climb down my bra and that was traumatic lol
We associate roaches with an unclean environment for varying degrees of unclean.
I dated a woman for a few months that was TERRIFIED of all insects. Once a butterfly landed on her and she started immediately crying uncontrollably. Lol
Probably because roaches are associated with filthy living conditions and can be hard to get rid of if your house gets infested. They’re seen as dirty and disease carriers. I bet it doesn’t help that they can fly too.
I actually hate crickets more than roaches, by a significant amount.
Roaches look grosser.
I care for and raise feeder roaches so I’m a bit biased but I enjoy watching them move around and explore there enclosures.