Earwigs (Dermaptera)
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Glasgow Museums has a collection of approximately 75 earwig specimens (Dermaptera) which date from the 1939 to the present.
This collection contains dried, pinned and card-mounted adult insects. Around 60 of the specimens are British, with three of the four resident British species represented: the Common Earwig (Forficula auricularia), the Small Earwig (Labia minor) and the Short-winged Earwig (Apterygida albipennis). Most of these are part of the John Heath Collection but were collected by other well-known entomologists including Ralph Michael Greenslade (1908-1975) and Arthur Morel Massee (1899-1967) in the early 1900s.
There are examples of earwigs from all around Scotland, including from St Kilda and Ailsa Craig, that were collected in recent years. The foreign earwigs are almost exclusively from Trinidad, collected by Glasgow Museums’ former Keeper of Natural History, E. G. Hancock during his field trips in the 1990s with Glasgow University.
About earwigs
There are approximately 2,000 species of earwig worldwide. The common name may stem from the fact that they like dark moist places, although they do not generally live in ears or wigs! Earwigs typically feed on decaying vegetation or occasionally living plants. There are some parasitic species that feed on the skin secretions of bats and rats. - Broader term
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