The parasitoid fly ormia ochracea (Diptera: Tachinidae) can use juvenile crickets as hosts

The parasitoid fly Ormia ochracea uses the calling song of its host Gryllus spp. to locate an area inhabited by potential hosts. Once a calling male has been located, O. ochracea deposits live larvae on the host, and on substrates surrounding the host to enable the larvae to attach to and enter individuals in the vicinity of the calling male. In Texas, where O. ochracea parasitizes the Texas field cricket Gryllus texensis, we observed juvenile crickets in the mating aggregations that form around calling males. Juvenile G. texensis crickets are, therefore, potentially susceptible to parasitism by O. ochracea. Here we investigated whether laboratory reared juvenile field crickets could successfully host O. ochracea larvae. We found that juvenile crickets were appropriate hosts for O. ochracea

Reproductive compensation: A review of the Gryllus spp.-Ormia ochracea host-parasitoid system

Calling male field crickets (Gryllus spp.) are acoustically located and subsequently parasitized by the parasitoid fly, Ormia ochracea (Diptera: Tachinidae). Parasitism by O. ochracea results in cricket death. The reproductive compensation hypothesis posits that when a host's residual reproductive value decreases, it would be adaptive for that host to shift its resources into current reproduction. Reproductive compensation has not been observed in the cricket-fly system. Here we review the studies to date that have investigated reproductive compensation in the cricket-fly interaction, in an attempt to understand why crickets do not compensate for their future reproductive losses. We conclude that the cricket-fly interaction may not be an ideal system in which to investigate reproductive compensation and furthermore, that reproductive compensation has been poorly investigated in this system