A type of Australian cricket has broken the world record for the most frequent sex, a new study shows.

Male scaly crickets (Ornebius aperta) can copulate more than 50 times in three to four hours with the same female, according to research in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

The research suggests that "extreme repeated mating" can develop in response to female-imposed limits on copulation.

In this case, the limit is due to female crickets removing sperm and eating it about three seconds after insertion.

The new world record puts the cricket ahead of the previous record holders, lions and tigers. Tigers can mate up to 50 times a day over five or six days.

Scientists monitored the sexual behaviour of crickets in the laboratory. Crickets were captured from colonies at the University of Toronto and at the gardens of the University of Western Australia. The scientists then reared the crickets in isolation to make sure they were virgins.

The researchers measured sperm counts per copulation, then compared final sperm counts in both the test subject crickets and in females caught in the wild that mated in natural conditions.