One of the most common things to find underneath a log or a rock is an earwig, and because of their name and their vicious looking pincers they are almost always met with a shriek of alarm. Which is a shame really because in actual fact earwigs are some of the most interesting mini-beasts we have here in the UK.
Earwigs lay their small white eggs in the spring. It takes 7 days for them to hatch and during this time the mother earwig will clean the eggs to protect them from fungi and defend them against predators even if that means not eating herself. Once hatched the earwig nymphs will stay with the mother until their second molt in about July. This type of nurturing is very rare in the insect world.It takes about 10 weeks for an earwig to go from an egg to a fully mature adult. In this time they molt 5 times, this means they shed their old skin and grow a new one. Baby earwigs look just like the adults only smaller and sometimes paler.
You can tell the difference between a male and a female earwig by looking at it’s pincers. Females have straight ones whereas males have curved ones.No one really knows why earwigs are called earwigs. They certainly don’t crawl into people’s ears and live there but did you know they have wings and can actually fly?