William H. Cade

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Dr William H. Cade (aka Bill Cade) is a biologist specialising in cricket biology. He is also the president of the University of Lethbridge. Cade is married to entomologist Elsa Salazar Cade.

[edit] Research

In 1970 Cade discovered that the parasitic fly Ormia ochracea is also attracted to the song of the male and uses it to locate the male in order to deposit her young on him. It was the first example of a natural enemy that locates its host or prey using the mating signal.

Dr. Cade discovered a link between crickets and a parasitic fly. The mating call of the male field cricket's (Gryllus texensis) is used by Ormia ochracea in locating the cricket. This small yellow fly is found throughout the south in the US, and has even been found as far north as Hamilton, Ontario. The flies are predators looking for a host. They machine gun their larvae on the cricket as they fly overhead. Using the male cricket's mating call to find him, they come up to the cricket and just spew larvae everywhere, and some of the larvae land on the male. The larvae quickly burrow into their host and eat the cricket in about four days. Since then many other species of crickets have been found to parasitized by the same fly around the world.