Ugly little animals with many legs, many people even a little scary – you have to fight them! Do you really have to? In the following, the catchy tunes and earwigs are introduced to you in more detail, which could change your perspective. But of course there are also tips for getting rid of earwigs and earwigs, from places where they don’t belong.
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Earwigs are harmless and useful
If you’re one of those people who were reassured in childhood by “funny adults” that earwigs pinch your ears or that earwigs crawl into your ears (up to your brain), perhaps this article will relieve you of some trauma.
The names earwigs or earwigs come from the fact that the little animals have rendered great service to human ears for a long time, from antiquity to the early modern era: They were ground into powder and used as a hearing aid for people who were hard of hearing medicine administered.
Earwigs don’t crawl in your ears and earwigs don’t pinch your ears and getting killed and ground up isn’t a very attractive life goal at all.
The earwigs are actually harmless flying insects. Only a part of the species can actually fly. Many species have lost wings and flight muscles and now have to walk. Although they are equipped with pincers (on the abdomen, modified abdominal threads), they mainly use them to unfold their wings, for mating and for defense and perhaps also for hunting tiny insects. The earwigs native to us are quite small, with a body length of around one centimetre. By the way, the catchy tunes are not worms either. This name came from non-botanists who found the catchy figure to be quite worm-like.
Earwigs like to stay where it is warm. For the most part they feed on dead plant parts, so they “clean up” and “make soil”. Some species also hunt smaller insects. The catchy tunes like to do all this in peace and quiet at night or at dusk. During the day they sleep, in a tree bark, under a rock or in another hiding place.
Our local “common earwig” is one of the predators and omnivores among the earwigs, which is one of the important beneficial insects. It may well be that after the caterpillar it nibbles on a flower, but then it can’t do much more than that. Harder shells (fruit membranes) he does not manage. If it is spotted in apple or grape, it has “migrated” through an existing damaged area. The sand earworm, which can also be found here, is a pure carnivore that devours a large number of pests. Earwigs rarely appear in large numbers, they only reproduce once a year.
Earwigs – better to celebrate than to fight
Actually, there are just as few reasons for people to fight the catchy tune as there are reasons for grinding it up and sticking it in human ears. In possession of full life and hunting power, the earwig is very useful for humans. Aphids are among the absolute favorite dishes of earwigs. He also likes to eat butterfly eggs, and even powdery mildew mushrooms are eaten.
Beneficial insects are therefore of great importance in a garden managed in a way that is close to nature, and the natural gardener “cares for his catchy tunes”. When in doubt, he lets them work specifically for him. If the aphids find such favorable conditions in one part of the garden that they multiply excessively, he simply settles a few earwigs there. Then they take care of the problem.
colonize earwigs? How it works? Quite simply, with an earwig trap. This is a straw-filled clay flower pot that is placed in the garden where earwigs were last seen. The pot can be hung upside down in the plants or placed next to it. The earwigs love such dark and cozy hiding places for their daylight rest period. The natural gardener then moves the whole catchy dwelling to where he needs the task force at midday.
He proceeds in exactly the same way when he wants to straighten out a “concentrated settlement area” of earwigs – he parks the collected earwigs in a plant where they can eat without causing any damage, i.e. in a plant where there are enough aphids. Such plants are B. the elder (Sambucus nigra), the hibiscus (Hibiscus syriacus), viburnum (Viburnum opulus), false jasmine (Philadelphus coronarius) or roses.
If the catchy tune isn’t right – create a balance
When people have already fiddled a lot with chemicals in garden ecology, the balance between pests and beneficial insects quickly gets upset.
Then it can happen that the aphids in your plants celebrate uninhibited parties because too few earwigs live nearby. Then you should go looking for earwigs instead of worrying about fighting earwigs.
But it can also happen that the earwigs are hungry, e.g. B. because you fought the aphids as soon as you saw them. Then the earwigs start feeding on your plants. You can then find holes with ragged edges in the leaves and flowers, earwigs not even during the day, they are nocturnal.
The smartest approach in this situation would be to just let the earwigs continue to feed, the damage is usually manageable, and hope the garden will return to a natural balance.
The next idea would be to implement the earwigs as already described, overall it is definitely better for your garden (and you) if you fight the tendency to reach for the poison club rather than if you fight the earwigs.
Earwig Invasion – Tips To Get Rid Of
If you keep plants in an environment that is limited by living spaces, which are particularly fond of being nibbled on by earwigs, the small animals can multiply excessively. Plants that are particularly often visited by earwigs should e.g. B. clematis, trumpet flowers (campsis), trumpet trees (angel’s trumpets, brugmansia) and dahlias. Surely there are more catchy treats. In addition, the supply determines the demand.
Again, it is actually not necessary to take any special measures to combat earwigs. No major damage is to be expected.
If an earwig nest has settled in the vicinity of the living area, it is quite possible that you startle a horde of baby earwigs, which then start running in all directions in panic. Even if you are one of those people who don’t like the look of the catchy tunes very much – they won’t hurt you at all. There’s no reason to hysterically jump onto the next chair.
Certainly no reason to cover your balcony or terrace with any toxic substances. In such a case, it is best to set up a really nice earwig trap (an upside-down clay pot with straw, excelsior or hay), a bundle of brushwood that is hung on the parapet, even a bunch of lavender should be a pleasant place for the earwigs to gather . Catchy tunes are also said to be quite sociable and like to move into a catchy house together. You can then carry this trap to the next natural area during the day, or give it to a neighbor who cannot get his aphid plague under control.
Fighting earwigs chemically?
Actually clear after what has just been written, but here again expressly: No!
A glue barrier on stone fruit trees is permitted in the list of plant protection products permitted in house and allotment gardens in order to prevent the common earwig from climbing the tree twice a year. Apricots are soft enough for him, he likes to fill his stomach with both the tender blossoms and the just ripening fruits. You can treat him to that, but you can also prevent him from doing so with Rampastop tree glue, it’s not bad chemistry, just tree wax.
Otherwise you are not allowed to use anything against earwigs, under threat of high fines for violations, the legislator is of the opinion that we need the beneficial insects in our natural world.
It probably wouldn’t make too much sense either, anyone who has survived almost 200 million years (see below for more on this) is certainly not going to be exterminated that quickly.
More interesting facts about earwigs
The fact that the catchy tunes are so popular because of their appearance, especially by people who are not very close to nature, probably has to do with the fact that their shape is actually archaic. We now know that earwigs have inhabited our earth since the Jurassic period. At that time, i.e. around 175 million years ago, “fashion” was different.
Humans did not exist at that time, but the oldest known mammal, the Hadrocodium wui, did. Perhaps the reason for the human primal fear of earwigs is to be found here. Eer Hadrocodium wui was very small, about the size of a paper clip, and was the common food of earwigs and other animals that were house-sized by comparison.
If you want to refresh this primal fear, for example in a monster film, you won’t get far with our catchy tunes. You could go in search of the St. Helena giant earwig. The stately 8 to 9 cm long and has been considered “lost” for a long time (cannot be found, but not definitely extinct).
Otherwise there are around 1800 known species of insects scientifically named Dermaptera on earth. They are divided into three groups:
- Forficulina = species occurring with us: common earwigs, sand earwigs, bush, two-spot, forest, dwarf and southern earwigs
- Arixeninae live on Malaysia and the Philippines:
- exclusively near or on bats
- they like to use the bats for transportation purposes
- Hemimerina only live on giant hamster rats (Cricetomys) in Africa and on their skin fungi and scales
Conclusion
Earwigs are anything but dangerous. They are really useful. If you approach them with different eyes, they can even be quite exciting. In any case, an earpiece is much more likely to be your friend than your foe. If he bothers you, he’ll happily move to where you want him to be.
