LARS THOMAS: The striped earwig

Thursday 23rd September 2021
LARS THOMAS: The striped earwig 

Ever seen a striped earwig (Labidura riparia)? Would you like to? Then you need to get out and about, and find some dunes and sandy areas, if you want to find this rather magnificent beast. It is the biggest species of earwig in Europe no less, roughly twice the size of the common earwig. It is also nocturnal, so you want to be lifting old pieces of driftwood and turning over stones if you want to feast your eyes upon it. For an earwig, it is an absolute dazzler – oh, and if it gets really annoying, it will lift its big forceps in a graceful curve over its head and pretend to be a scorpion.

More from Lars’ mini menagerie HERE

The striped earwig at Wikipedia HERE

Jonathan Downes
Cryptozoologist, naturalist, musician, singer, composer, poet, novelist and Director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology since 1992. Jon was born in Portsmouth in 1959 and spent his infancy in Nigeria and his childhood in Hong Kong. His wife Corinna died of cancer in 2020, leaving him with two stepdaughters and a six year old granddaughter called Evelyn.