Earwigo again

• In Robert Herrick’s poem Hesperides, a feast attended by Queen Titania included ‘beards of mice, a newt’s stew’d thigh, a bloated earwig and a fly’

• The earwig was known as the battletwig in parts of rural England and was mentioned as such in Tennyson’s poem The Spinster’s Sweet Arts

• In some areas of Japan, the earwig is known as chinpo-basami, which translates as penis-cutter

• Found in Turkey and on a few Aegean islands, King Ferdinand’s orchid (Ophrys regis-ferdinandii, right)—named after the early-16thcentury Holy Roman Emperor—is, thanks to its appearance, also called the earwig orchid