Cricket Calls are Nature’s Thermometer To convert cricket calls to degrees Celsius , count the number of chirps in 25 seconds, divide by 3, then add 4 to get the temperature. For example, you will hear 48 calls in 25 seconds when temperature is 20ºC because: 48/3 + 4 = 20° C Crickets chirp by rubbing their wings or legs over each other. Only the males of the species make this noise and they do so to attract mates. The notion that counting the chirps of crickets can serve as an informal way of getting the temperature is not new. In 1897, physicist Amos Dolbear proposed the reverse of that idea, stating that outdoor temperature determines the number of cricket calls heard. Over the years, his way of looking at this relationship was turned around, people now count the chirps to...
