Earwigs

Earwigs are nocturnal or active at night and hide during the day in moist, shady places such as under stones or logs or in mulch. Neither the eggs nor nymphs can withstand long periods of dryness. They feed on live or dead plants and/or insects. At times they damage cultivated plants. The European earwig occasionally damages vegetables, flowers, fruits, ornamental shrubs, and trees, and has been recorded as feeding on honey in beehives. The red-legged earwig has been recorded as a pest of Irish and sweet potatoes in storage, damaging the roots of greenhouse vegetables, and as a pest in flour mills, breweries, meat-packing plants, slaughter houses, gardens, and nurseries. The striped earwig has not been recorded as damaging plants. Earwigs are attracted to lights or to insects attracted to lights. Usually it is the European and red-legged earwigs which occasionally invade homes, sometimes by the hundreds of thousands.

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