The Common Earwig is a shiny brown insect that has large tweezer-like pincers at the back of its body. It can be seen throughout the country in gardens, woodlands and in damp crevices in houses. In the day it likes to hide in crevices, under the bark of trees and in hollow plant stems and at night it emerges to feed on plant petals, especially chrysanthemums and dahlias.

The Common Earwig is around one and half centimetres in length and has a flattend body that is long and slender. Its head and abdomen are a dark brown colour and the thorax, which is the middle part of the body, is a lighter chestnut brown colour. The thorax holds three pairs of legs and two sets of wings. The hindwings are soft and fine and the forewings, called ‘elytra’, are short thick and quite hard. The elytra cover and protect the more delicate hindwings. Despite the Common Earwig having wings it is very rarely seen in flight.

The female Common Earwig lays her eggs in crevices or under stones and stays with the eggs to guard them. The female also licks the eggs clean from time to time to stop the eggs getting any fungal infections. After about two to four weeks larvae, called ‘nymphs’, hatch out of the eggs. The nymphs look like miniature adults and after around ten weeks they develop into fully grown Common Earwigs.