European Earwig Adults
Jim Kalisch, UNL Entomology
Department of Entomology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Earwigs have been a pest for many years in the United States. They got their name from the myth that they crawl into sleeping people's ears and tunnel into the brain. Twenty-two types of these pests make their home in the United States while over a thousand different species live all over the world. Some of these have wings, some have stripes on their abdomens, some are dark brown, but all have pinchers.

Earwigs are both plant and insect eaters. In fact, they will eat just about anything. This pest hides during the day and feeds on leaves, flowers, fruits, mold and insects at night. Plant damage looks much like slug damage; the main difference is that slugs will leave a slimy trail behind where earwigs leave no foot prints. Plant damage can be extreme.

Although it is most common to find small irregular holes, earwigs will readily eat all of the "meat" of a leaf leaving only a skeleton frame behind. Earwigs are "thigmotropic", just like cockroaches. “Thigmotropic" means they love to squeeze into tight places to hide during the daylight hours, coming out to forage for food at night. In my garage those cardboard boxes also provide a nice cool place to hide during the hot daylight hours, coming out to forage for food at night.

A female earwig prepares a "nest" by digging a cave in the soil, under the leaf mulch around the flowers and shrubs in the yard or under a board or rock. She then deposits around fifty eggs into this nest and, being a good mother, stacks and re-stacks the eggs to keep them dry, licking them off at intervals in order to keep fungi from growing on the outside of the eggs. Termites exhibit a similar behavior, although the licking is done by "nurse" termites, not by the female that laid the eggs. Earwig eggs may take up to two months to hatch during the cooler weather of early spring, or in only one month in the warmer weather of summer.