INTRODUCTION. The common name of earwig comes from an old European superstition that these insects enter the ears of sleeping people and bore into the brain.  This belief is without foundation.  The forcepslike cerci are apparently used as both offensive and defensive weapons, and are sometimes used to capture prey.  Earwigs are worldwide in distribution, with about 22 species occurring in the United States.

RECOGNITION. Adults about 1/4-1in (5-25 mm) long, with body elongate, flattened in form.  Color varies from pale brown with dark markings to uniformly reddish brown to black, but with paler legs.  With 4 wings (rarely wingless), front wings leatherly, short, and meeting in a straight line down the back whereas, hind wings membranous, fan-shaped, and folded under front wings.  Cerci well developed and forcepslike but usually differ in shape in the sexes.  Antennae threadlike, about half body length.  Tarsi 3-segmented.  Mouthparts chewing.

     Nymphs similar to adults but have no wings.

HABITS. Earwigs are nocturnal or active at night and hide during the day in moist, shady places such as under stones or logs, or in mulch.  Neither the eggs nor nymphs can withstand long periods of dryness.

     Earwigs feed on live or dead plants and/or insects.  At times they damage cultivated platns.  The European earwig occasionally damages vegetables, flowers, fruits, ornamental shrubs, and trees, and has been recorded as feeding on honey in beehives.  The red-legged earwig has been recorded as a pest of Irish and sweet potatoes in storge, damaging the roots of greenhouse vegetables, and as a pest in flour mills, breweries, meat-packing plants, slaughter houses, gardens, and nurseries.  The striped earwig has not been recorded as damaging plants.

     Earwigs are attacted to lights or to insects attracted to lights.  Usually it is the European and red-legged earwigs which occasionally invade homes, sometimes by the hundreds or thousands.

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