Magical creatures

AN APPRECIATION OF THE EARWIG

In the late afternoon I steal into my garden to where a bug hotel sits nailed to the fence near my espalier apple trees. Lifting the lid just a crack, I peer inside and find three sleeping earwigs among the wooden cells. I’d been given multiple bug hotels for my birthday, and so I’d decided to dedicate one to these glossy brown insects in a bid to encourage as many as possible into my garden. A decision many people may find odd, as if you say ‘earwig’ to someone, you’re bound to get a strong reaction. They might pull faces, shudder, rub their hands up and down their arms as though the little creatures are crawling all over them. Quite a strong reaction for such a tiny insect.

Playground tales of earwigs burrowing into ears to lay their eggs is the most likely cause of people’s discomfort – and this longstanding myth is thought to be where the insects get their name. Or perhaps it’s their anatomy that turns people against these harmless little creatures. The small pincers extruding from earwigs’ abdomens are strong enough to fend off other small insects that predate on them, but it’s impossible for them to do a person any damage. In fact earwigs, like all insects, are of benefit to us, playing a key part in the ecosystem and in our gardens.

There are around 2,000 species of earwig worldwide, with four native to the UK. These are the ones you’re most likely to see, although being nocturnal, it’s late in the evening that you’ll have the best chance of spotting them out and about. They spend their daylight hours asleep, burrowed into cracks in trees, under pots, rocks and logs, or in bug hotels. They wake at night to feast on leaves and flowers, but also eat insects, particularly fruit aphids, making them excellent orchard bodyguards.

On warm June evenings, I often find myself in my garden as the sun begins to set and we lose the last of the golden light. I usually spy a few earwigs crawling around the branches of the apple trees – and they do generally crawl. Despite having wings, they don’t often use them. They’re in search of a bit of dinner (or is it breakfast?) and I’m more than happy for them to get on with their meal.

Unlike most insects, female earwigs are good mothers, staying with their eggs throughout the winter, even cleaning them, and then carefully tending the nymphs and guarding them against predators. This vastly increases their chance of survival. But in domestic gardens earwigs are in decline due to the use of pesticides and the destruction of their habitats as trees, shrubs and long grass are removed in favour of paving and gravel.

Before summer, earwig nymphs spend most of their life with their family, but in June they leave the nest, starting a new unaccompanied adult life and searching for a place to rest – such as my bug hotel. Closing the lid gently,

I rest easy, knowing they’ll soon be up for the night shift, keeping my tiny new apples safe until harvest time comes.