William Cade did research in evolution of animal behavior, insect reproductive behavior, acoustic signals in cricket, cockroach mating behavior, and parasite-prey coevolution.
Flies and crickets With his wife, Cade did more than 30 years of research on the Texas field cricket,
Gryllus texensis. He also had a long collaboration with
Dan Otte collecting and studying the crickets and
grasshoppers of
Africa. In 1975, together with his wife, he discovered the parasitic fly
Ormia ochracea is attracted to the song of male crickets. Only female flies are attracted to the song, and they deposit living larvae on and in the vicinity of calling males. The larvae burrow into and eat the cricket who dies in about 7 days when the flies pupate. This was the first example of a natural enemy that locates its host or prey using the mating signal of the host/prey. In 2006, research by
Marlene Zuk revealed that pressure from the
O. ochracea caused the crickets to evolve a silent male with wings that look like female wings, one of the fastest recorded examples of evolution. == Selected publications ==