A PHEROMONE-LIKE DISPERSANT AFFECTING THE LOCAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE EUROPEAN HOUSE CRICKET, ACHETA DOMESTICA

¹ Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill., 60637

1. The European house cricket, Acheta domestica, will condition blocks of wood by depositing unknown classes of compounds upon them.

2. Crickets will occupy conditioned blocks in preference to unconditioned ones. The attractants on the conditioned blocks are produced by both sexes and both sexes respond positively to them.

3. When conditioned and control blocks are covered with tissue or filter paper, the crickets will now avoid the conditioned blocks, indicating the presence of a dispersant which was masked in tests carried out without a covering (as in [2] above).

4. Both sexes produce and both avoid the dispersant. Each sex responds more negatively to the dispersant of its own sex than to that of the opposite.

5. The dispersant appears to be a volatile compound which is ineffective after about 24 hours. The attractant is much more stable.

6. A model for the interaction of the attractant-dispersant is presented.