Nature notes

Despite rumours to the contrary, earwigs have absolutely no interest in crawling into your ears. There are more than 1,000 species worldwide, but only four in the UK; the most familiar, by a long chalk, is the common earwig. A nocturnal detritivore, they play a vital role in recycling organic matter such as dead leaves and rotten wood. Their long, reddish-brown bodies terminate in a pair of pincers used both for defence and mating, and on their backs they carry two pairs of delicate, foldaway wings that are rarely seen. Unusually among insects, female earwigs look after their eggs and young (which are, delightfully, known as wiglets), protecting the eggs from fungal infection and guarding the wiglets from attack. Melissa Harrison