Insects and other ectotherms live their life cycles based on the ambient temperature. As such, they don't measure age in the same chronological way that endothermic animals (like humans) do. Their life cycle is measured in degree days, how much ambient energy they receive over a time period. Less ambient energy over a period of time, and they will age slower, more ambient energy over time, and they will age faster.

In this experiment I will demonstrate how increasing the temperature will accelerate the aging process of an insect.

I started off with 11 crickets which were roughly about 4 weeks old. At this stage, at about average room temperature, they reach maturity in 3 to 4 weeks. They were approximately a half an inch long, and as all insects in early life, have no wings or wing pads.

The system setup was as follows. The hot chamber was wrapped in aluminum foil, except for one facing, which was against a incandescent lamp. The cold chamber was simply immersed in water and ice, and placed away from direct sunlight. Inside there was gravel, a small cup of dog food, a tube from a paper towel roll, a piece of egg carton, and two cotton balls which would be moistened to provide water.

The crickets in the hot chamber tended to stay inside the cardboard tube, and hidden from view, whereas the cold chamber crickets tended to huddle together on to of the cardboard tube. During this period, one cricket from the cold chamber escaped, and one or two died, presumably from infection due to humidity. One cricket from the hot chamber died or escaped, but I never did find the body.

Three weeks later, I removed the crickets from their chambers, put them in plastic bags, and placed them in the refrigerator. This was to make the crickets less difficult to work with when documenting them. I placed them on a sheet of white paper and photographed them. The crickets from the cold chamber were still only about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch long, with the exception of one individual, who was almost an inch long, and had wing pads. By contrast, the crickets in the hot chamber were all about one inch long, about half of them had wings and extended ovipositors, and the remaining excluding one had wing pads.

Afterwards I released all of them. I know releasing anything in the wild is generally a bad idea, but there are only females, no males.