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Earwigs

  • Scientific Name: Forficula auricularia
  • Nicknames: Pincher Bug
  • Length: 1/4" - 1"
  • Color: Black/Brown
  • Aggressive? No
  • Do They Bite? They Can Pinch
  • Poisonous/Venomous? Can Cause Skin Irriations
  • Disease Carrying? Not Known
  • Invasive Species? No

The Earwig

Adults and nymphs have characteristic "pinchers" or forceps-like structures on the back end of their brown to black somewhat flattened bodies. They may be as long as 1 inch and have three pairs of well-developed legs. Nymphal stages are wingless, but some adult earwigs have hind wings neatly folded underneath short cover-like forewings. However, they rarely fly.

Earwigs are active at night and seek dark places during the day such as underneath rocks, bark, and plant debris. They also occur indoors, particularly during periods of unfavorable outdoor conditions. They feed mainly on both dead and living insects and mosses, lichens, algae and fungi. Indoors, their food consists of sweet, oily and greasy foods.

Earwigs are generally harmless; feed mainly on arthropods and decaying organic matter. They can be a nuisance when they invade homes.

Living Spaces

Basements, Crawl Spaces, Exterior Landscaping

Diet Choices

Dead Plants or Dead Insects

Fun Fact

They give off an offputting smell when disturbed or crushed

How Do We Remove Them?

One of the pest management experts at McMahon Exterminating will visit your home and provide a proper assessment and ID the bugs that are infesting your home or property to better understand the type of insects or pests that they are dealing with to properly coordinate a plan that will work best for you.

We help educate the customer on things that they might be able to do to help deter the pests as well, and will try to prevent this from becoming a reocurring infestation.

The treatment will begin by spraying with interior residual treatments, along with exterior perimeter treatments. After which, we will monitor the situtaion closely to make sure that the numbers are being depleted in the area. We want to try to deter the insects from coming to your area as opposed to just chemically treating them, as that will only be a short term solution for you but with McMahon's C.A.N. initiative and our three easy steps — Canvas the area, Act on those results, and Negate re-entry for the pest, we can work on getting your home to pest free status.