{"id":12395,"date":"2013-05-08T16:20:20","date_gmt":"2013-05-08T15:20:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rentokil.ie\/blog\/\/?p=12395"},"modified":"2026-05-21T14:45:41","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T13:45:41","slug":"e-is-for-earwig","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rentokil.ie\/blog\/e-is-for-earwig\/","title":{"rendered":"E is for Earwig"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The name of this pest has always baffled me.\u00a0 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?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Having done a little bit of research into the origin of the name I can now explain to you the meaning ( I hope!).&nbsp;It appears that the common name stems from the Old English <em>wicga<\/em> (insect) and <em>\u0113are (ear). <\/em>And the \u201cear connection\u201d 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite the threatening name and appearance \u2013 they have a pincer tail \u2013 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 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rentokil.ie\/ants\/species\/\">garden ants<\/a> no doubt!).<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rentokil.ie\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/117384547-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"The back pincers on the earwig are harmless\" class=\"wp-image-12417\" title=\"The back pincers on the earwig are harmless\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.rentokil.ie\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/117384547-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.rentokil.ie\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/117384547-1024x682.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>As a keen gardener, I have to say that I don\u2019t 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 <em>nonna<\/em>\u2019s&nbsp; garden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just to add then, in case you are interested, the scientific name for the common earwig is <em>Forficula auricularia<\/em>. Sounds much better in Latin!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The name of this pest has always baffled me.\u00a0 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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":14858,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[2405],"tags":[1975,1974],"class_list":["post-12395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insects","tag-earwig","tag-forficula-auricularia"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Earwigs: Garden &amp; Indoor Encounters | Pest Control Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"You may find earwigs in the garden, though they can get indoors through cracks. 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