Mom of the Year!

Ahh. Motherhood! There is nothing better! Of course, some mothers are much better at this whole thing than others. Today when I was outside, I decided to weed a few more of the flower gardens and made a discovery! I accidentally moved one of the boards that is acting as a border and found a nursery! There under that board was a mother Earwig with her batch of eggs. Now, here is the point in time where most people would have shouted ewwww! and smashed the Earwig and eggs. Not me..I was fascinated with this as I am with all bits of Nature. I was curious as to how she would react to having the board removed from overtop of her nest. Can an Earwig be a good mother? Would she even care that her eggs were left exposed to all sorts of danger? Or would she scamper out of sight and abandon the clutch of unhatched babies? It is rare to find an insect that actually cares for eggs. Most simply deposit the eggs and go on about the day's business. Not Mother Earwig! She took up a defensive pose. She was ready to attack anything that threatened her little family-to-be. She looked around as if in disbelief that her roof had gone missing. Then after realizing that there was no immediate threat, she went about gathering her eggs closer to her. She would pick up any that had rolled away from her and put them back into the clutch. Then, she decided the thing to do would be sit on top of the clutch. I suppose she was hoping that somehow, magically, her house would be repaired and she could go about being the doting mom.

Earwigs are actually known to be good mothers. The mother will lay twenty to eighty pearly white, round eggs over a period of two days. It takes approximately seven days for these eggs to hatch and the mother will be right there overseeing the whole process..even to the point of helping them out of the shell if need be. The mothers do defend their egg clutches and later will stay with their babies until the second molting. This gives them plenty of time to mature to the stage that they can find food, defend themselves and live on their own. Before hatching, the mom will clean the eggs often to prevent any molds or mildews from growing on the eggshell. This would surely kill the unborn infant. She protects them from marauding ants, hungry birds and slithery lizards. Amazing mothers!

Now for the "Old Wive's Tale" that Earwigs will crawl into a sleeping person's ear and burrow into the brain to lay her eggs...partially true but mostly false. Even though this might have had some bearing on how the insect received their common name and even though they might crawl into your ear..the rest is false. Earwigs love warm moist places and if one happens to find itself in your bed, it just might decide that your ear looks like a lovely home. As for the burrowing..if someone leaves a bug in their ear..well..I am assuming they probably do not clean their ears often. This fact might actually cause the poor insect to be unintentionally caught in a rather not-so-nice situation. It, in affect, could perhaps become entrapped in earwax. This could be mistakenly taken as the bug burrowing when in reality it is probably trying to escape..sort of like the poor old dinosaurs in the La Brea Tar Pits..not a nice thing for the bug! They do not burrow into the ear to reach the brain..they do not lay their eggs inside your head..clean your ears and they will not get stuck!

I watched for a bit as Mother Earwig tended her unborn. I knew in her tiny insect brain, she was probably a bit miffed at the intrusion so I gently replaced the board. She can rest easy to know that I did not have a mean streak and smash them all to smithereens! As much as I do not care for Earwigs in my house, if she stays outside..she can live! ...............Oh, just so you will know! If the pinchers on the rear of the insect are curved..it is a male..the females have straight pinchers! (I knew all of you have been just so curious about that!)