The crickets here are brown, they are not shiny, and the head is not big like the one in the pic. When they are babies they are tiny neon green little things. Other than that I have no clue what kind of crickets we have here in FL. I've never thought about it. Time for some research and some close-up cricket macro photos.

Haha, awesome. I'm curious I think what you're possibly talking about is a Jamaican field cricket (Gryllus assimilis), which live southern FL.

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"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines." - John Benfield

I capture black crickets and keep them with the housed crickets They seem to get a long fine. also the black cricket breed quickly and lay eggs just as fast is this because they are wildly caught? hmm wierd my leopard geckos don't notice a difference.

I would not use crickets from outside to feed your lizard.
There is no telling what they may have been contaminated with.

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I live in Southwest FL and we have the black field crickets. They love to live in dark moist places, like under trash cans kept outside.

If you do insist on using wild caught crickets, you should gutload them for at least 5 days before feeding to flush their systems a little.

It's not so much what they've eaten that Merlin's concered with. It's what chemicals their entire bodies could be contaminated with. Plus the crickets could be harboring harmful disease, bacteria, or internal parasites. Many of them do.

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"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines." - John Benfield

Holding them for 5 or more days should allow any that are sick or infected with pesticides to die. Theoretically at least.

Not really. You'd be surprised Many of them will go their entire lives with a parasite inside, or even multiple parasites. Sometimes the parasite isn't even there for the cricket, but waiting for the cricket to be eaten so that it can infect the unfortunate lizard or bird that's gobbled it up.

As for diease, they will carry diseases without actually being ill themselves, and even if the cricket is sick, there's no virus rule book that says no sick cricket is allowed to live for more than 5 days. When a cricket is infected with a pesticide, it's because they've built up an immunity to it (otherwise it would already be dead). Therefore the cricket will have the chemicals on it's body and they won't be harming the cricket. The same applies to fertilizers, fungicides, herbicides, etc.

In short, a 5 day quarantine is no guarantee that your crickets are safe to eat. If the cricket is carrying anything, it's very possible that it's been carrying it for more than 5 days and that an additional 5 days will make just as little difference.

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"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines." - John Benfield

Very True. I personally don't feed wild caught crickets and the info I have is just what i've read about it. All to often info published is wrong and I should probably double check my references. However I have still gotten crickets from pet stores that within a few days all die and I get little flies in the cricket enclosure, so even pet stores are no gaurantee of healthy crickets. Still more reliable than wild caught though.