No: a study of tropical house crickets did not show that microplastics made them grow larger. It tracked the crickets as they grew and tested how particle size affected what they swallowed. The reported growth happened during development; it is not evidence that plastic caused it.
What did the cricket study test?
The December 2025 study examined tropical house crickets (Gryllodes sigillatus) and their interaction with polyethylene microplastic particles of different sizes. The researchers investigated whether the crickets’ mouth size affected which particles they could ingest as the insects grew.
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The paper, “The Disadvantage of Having a Big Mouth: The Relationship between Insect Body Size and Microplastic Ingestion,” by Marshall W. Ritchie and colleagues, was published online December 2, 2025, in Environmental Science & Technology and appeared in the December 16 issue. Read the paper at the American Chemical Society.
Did microplastics make the crickets grow?
The study does not establish that. The crickets grew as they developed during the experiment, but the reported growth figures are not evidence that eating plastic caused an increase in size.
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- Body mass: The paper’s abstract describes a 20-fold change in body mass during growth and development.
- Body size: The American Chemical Society’s summary says body size increased approximately 25 times over seven weeks.
These are different descriptions from different sources: body mass and body size should not be treated as interchangeable measurements. Neither source says that microplastics caused the growth. See the ACS summary.
How did mouth size affect plastic ingestion?
Particle size relative to mouth size mattered. The study reports that crickets consumed polyethylene particles only when their mouth was larger than the particle. As the animals grew, particles that had previously been too large to eat could become ingestible.
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Ritchie, the corresponding author and a Carleton University researcher, said: “Once a particle was big enough to be eaten, crickets continued to eat it for the rest of their life.” The finding describes these crickets under experimental conditions; it does not establish that insects generally prefer plastic.
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Ingestion and fragmentation were distinct outcomes. The researchers found that smaller particles were more likely to pass through the crickets intact, while larger particles were more extensively biofragmented after ingestion.
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A separate 2024 study reported that a cricket digestive system can pulverize polyethylene microplastics down to the nanoplastic scale. That earlier work provides related context, but it is not a result unique to the 2025 body-size study. View the 2024 study’s PubMed record.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the findings do—and do not—show
The 2025 experiment offers evidence about how one model cricket species interacted with polyethylene particles as the insects grew. It does not demonstrate that plastic stimulates insect growth, that insects broadly prefer plastic, or what the experiment’s results would mean for food webs or human health. Those wider ecological and health consequences were not quantified by this study.
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