Official Guide to Keeping Earwigs

Name: European Earwig or Pincher Bugs (Dermaptera)

Size: 6-35 mm depending on species

Lifespan: 1-3 years

Hibernation: Unnecessary

Earwigs: Earwigs are actually fun to care for, and reproduce quickly which can be very helpful if you are looking to breed them for pet food. Males and females can be easily identified from each other. They are 100% harmless, and very active. They are equipped with pincher's but doesn't hurt when pinched by them. They also are nocturnal so don't expect much action during the day. But at night when you look in at them, they are eating, and chasing each other around the tanks.

Identity: Earwigs are super easy to identify, they look similar to termites in some ways, only larger, darker in color, and have these pinchers towards the back of their body. Also knowing whether the the earwig is a male or female, is also easy. The males Pincher's  have a curve in them, while females pincher's are straighter
Female Left & Male right

Food: Earwigs can be limited to fish flakes and they will thrive just fine off of them. However I give mine an occasional wolf spider for example which they kill easily and eat.

Habitat: Earwigs need to be kept in a cool dry place. Anywhere between 50-70 degrees is fine for temperature. For a habitat a aquarium, around 6 inch by 6 inch tank is fine or any container around that size. I recommend only one male earwig per habitat, and no more than two because they fight and about 6 – 8 females with the one or two males is fine. The habitat should have lots of places to hide, and about half of an inch of wet sand at the bottom of the container.

Reproduction: With this habitat setup the males will mate with several of the females. From my experience around anywhere from 1-5 weeks she will lay her eggs in a small hole in the sand just guarding the eggs, which look like a big pile of white pearly balls. When they hatch she continues to watch them until their second molt. When they hatch they look just like their parents only completely white and significantly smaller. When they all turn into adults you either need to expand their habitat so there is more room or take some out and put them into other habitats, so there is no fighting which will result in a lot of deaths. They reproduce very quickly so be ready!

By, T.C.

Very good!

Thank you

I like it, very detailed. Good Job.

Nice caresheet, I caught a female with a clutch of eggs a few years back, I found it remarkable how well she cared for her eggs and the resulting young, unfortunately I was never able to get her offspring to breed.

Thanks, and yeah, I have heard of people complaining about the same thing before. I am not sure whats up with that?

My earwigs are spoiled I feed them lettuce and super worms lol

I object to the idea of using earwigs as pet food. Yes they are 100% harmless to humans but can be potentially dangerous to pets such as other inverts. Remember, these guys can fight back. I would personally only use these as feeders for armored inverts such as scorpions and maybe to fish.

Otherwise very nice caresheet.

Wait, so which species are you talking about in this caresheet? The pictures depict two different species, and not all have the same eating habits.

This one is referring to European Earwigs specifically. The image was just to show how to tell whether a earwig was male or female by looking at the pinchers.

Ah.

Interesting that European earwigs can take down wolf spiders, I didn't know they were that voracious.