Transcript

Picture yourself surrounded by siblings, safely hidden below your mother. You recently hatched out of your egg, and you have a whole insect life ahead of you! If you play your cards well, you might reach the old age of eighteen months. But for now, you are just a few hours old, little earwig, a tiny baby, or nymph.

[Central European soundscapes fades in. Insects are constantly chirping in the background, and different bird species are filling the air with their calls.]

Hi and welcome back to the Insect Insights for a second season and some more chill insect stories to relax and wonder. If you like this podcast, you can subscribe, leave a review and even an insect question, on spotify or on the website. You will find the links in the shownotes, along with useful sources for this story. I am Max, your host, and I hope you are ready to dive into insect knowledge for another insight!

As a common earwig, you are going to spend a significant amount of your life living in a group. Your life certainly starts like this: born in the safety of a nest dug by your caring mother, hatched from an egg she attentively kept clean.

And now that you are a little independent insect, even though you could go on your own way and forage food yourself, you are going to stay with your family for a little while. It is the beginning of spring, and food is fairly easy to find. With your mother and siblings, you will form a nice family unit, staying in this nest, and helping each other thrive. What a lovely time!

Earwigs mothers truly give their best efforts. They will fiercely defend their nest against intruders, using their pincer-like tail thingies, or cerci, as well as their ability to spray chemicals with irritating odors. But while they do not lack the maternal intent, they aren’t the best at recognizing their own. You could give a mother earwig anything that more or less resembles one of her eggs, and she would take care of it. She would be able to tell a baby earwig from another animal, but would take the earwig no matter if it is one of her own or not.

And let’s just say, that’s not great for you. Having a good mom is super, but you would tend to want it for yourself only. The maternal care you receive is precious, and so is the care you give to the other earwig nymphs who form your sibling pack. This resources is best distributed among the family only…

Well, as your mother doesn’t seem to be willing, or probably not capable, of telling apart her real offsprings from adopted outsiders, it sounds like it is going to be your job to ensure mom-time isn’t wasted on any opportunist.

Earwig nymphs have a very nice tool at their disposal to trim the ranks of the pack while getting a nice meal: cannibalism. And while cannibalism between siblings isn’t all that rare, it surely is more common when intruders try to steal some of your maternal attention.

Just out of the egg, and already so full of clever thinking you are, little earwig nymph. Let’s feast on the ones who thought they could try to get adopted by your sweet mother.

Sources

Dobler, R., & Kölliker, M. (2010). Kin-selected siblicide and cannibalism in the European earwig. Behavioral Ecology, 21(2), 257–263. https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arp184

Influence of weight asymmetry and kinship on siblicidal and cannibalistic behaviour in earwigs—ScienceDirect. (n.d.). Retrieved October 16, 2025, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003347211002594

Meunier, J. (2024). The Biology and Social Life of Earwigs (Dermaptera). Annual Review of Entomology, 69(Volume 69, 2024), 259–276. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-ento-013023-015632