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Home  /  Crawling Insects  /  E is for Earwig
08 May 2013

E is for Earwig

Written by Jackie
Crawling Insects earwig, forficula auricularia 2 Comments

The name of this pest has always baffled me.  Everyone knows I am not a big insect fan. But even the name of this particular pest is creepy! Why ear? And wigs? Why name it earwig?

Having done a little bit of research into the origin of the name I can now explain to you the meaning ( I hope!). It appears that the common name stems from the Old English wicga (insect) and ēare (ear). And the “ear connection” comes from the old wives tale that this insect used to burrow into the human brain to lay eggs by crawling inside the ear canal! Like most old wives tales, I do hope this one is untrue.

Despite the threatening name and appearance – they have a pincer tail – earwigs are relatively harmless. You are most likely to encounter them in the garden though they have been known to get indoors through cracks and small openings (following in the footsteps of the pesky garden ants no doubt!).

The back pincers on the earwig are harmlessAs a keen gardener, I have to say that I don’t recall meeting this insect before. My usual encounter is with slugs. Nevertheless my colleague recalls that back in Italy earwigs used to regularly invade her favourite fuchsia plant in her nonna’s  garden.

Just to add then, in case you are interested, the scientific name for the common earwig is Forficula auricularia. Sounds much better in Latin!

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Jackie

I joined UK Marketing for Rentokil Pest Control in January 2009. What an enlightenment that has been….cheese mites, bed bugs and confused flour beetles, I never knew such things existed but I’ve certainly learnt how Rentokil expertise and experience eliminates them. Now my mission is to use the website to show the population of the UK that whatever their pest problem, Rentokil have the solution. Life outside of work revolves around my husband and kids, so life is pretty hectic!

2 Comments

  1. Susy Reply to Susy to Susy" aria-label=' Reply to Susy to Susy'> Reply to Susy
    May 8, 2013 at 4:48 pm

    I hope the fact of the eggs inside the ear is a urban legend! It’s really creepy!

    Anyway I like the latin name is very similar to the Italian version “Forbicina” 🙂

  2. Alicia Reply to Alicia to Alicia" aria-label=' Reply to Alicia to Alicia'> Reply to Alicia
    May 10, 2013 at 10:13 am

    Hi Andy

    Thank you for drawing my attention to this – I have amended the copy,

    Alicia

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