How Long Is a House Cricket? 1.6 cm (0.63 in)

Compared with things you know

About the same as the width of a standard six-sided die (1.6 cm)
About 66% of the width of a US quarter coin (2.43 cm)
About 19% of the width of a credit card (8.56 cm)

House cricket 1.6 cm
Six-sided die 1.6 cm
US quarter 2.43 cm

Drawn to scale: Six-sided die, 1.6 cm wide · House cricket, 1.6 cm long · US quarter, 2.43 cm across

House cricket dimensions

Measurement	Metric	Imperial	Source
Length	1.6 cm16 mm	0.63 in	^[1]^[2]

How big an adult is

The house cricket (Acheta domesticus) is 16 to 21 mm (5/8 to 7/8 in) long as an adult, according to the University of Florida. Wikipedia gives the same range, 16–21 mm (0.63–0.83 in). Adults are light yellowish-brown, and their wings cover the abdomen. The 16 mm used at the top of this page is the bottom of this range, so many adults are a little longer.^[1]^[2]

Growth and wings

Juveniles resemble adults except for being smaller and wingless, so young crickets are noticeably shorter than the adult range. When reared at 80 to 90 °F, house crickets take two to three months to complete their life cycle. All house crickets have long hind wings when they become adult, though they sometimes shed them later.^[1]^[2]

Telling males and females apart

Females have a brown-black, needle-like ovipositor extending from the centre of the rear of the body, which they use to lay eggs. On males the cerci, the pair of short appendages at the rear, are more prominent. Wikipedia gives the 16–21 mm length for the species without separating the sexes.^[2]