We only come out at night

Recently, I have been seeing less and less green in the garden.  The weather has been very dry and is now getting cooler -- but these aren't the only problems that the plants have been facing.  They are also losing large portions of their leaves to hungry herbivores.

A rose leaf that has been damaged by an insect, possibly a leafcutting bee.

I wanted to know what was altering the leaves, often in quite interesting and aesthetically pleasing ways; however, during the day, the "artists" remained anonymous.  Searching again after dark, I found a very different garden.  Wherever I looked, there were earwigs (Forficula auricularia).  I may have seen over a hundred earwigs during a single tour of the garden -- and wherever I saw them, they were eating.

A European earwig (Forficula auricularia) eating the edge of a leaf.

Although by far the most numerous, the earwigs were not the only insects busy chewing up leaves.  I also found a couple of black vine weevils (Otiorhynchus sulcatus) feeding under the cover of darkness.

A black vine weevil (Otiorhynchus sulcatus) eating the edge of a leaf.

The weevil above was just getting started on its leaf when I found it.  It was startled by the camera and dropped to the ground (these weevils cannot fly).  However, other leaves nearby had not been so lucky.

The pincer attack

Despite the fact that they have never done me any harm, I have always had a strong dislike of earwigs.  Their large pincers are threatening enough without the suggestion that they could be brought into my ears.  My insect field guide asserts that though earwigs do seek refuge in enclosed spaces, those spaces do not include human ears. 

A European earwig (Forficula auricularia) deep inside a hollyhock (Alcea rosea) flower.

Whether earwigs really do crawl into ears is not something I am willing to test for myself.  However, I was willing to test how much of a pinch the pincers can give -- as long as I wasn't the one getting pinched.  Watch the video below to find out what happened.

* To see this video in high definition (1080p), you may need to (1) click "YouTube" to watch on the YouTube website and (2) change the settings at the bottom of the video screen.

I was somewhat disappointed with the response of this European earwig (Forficula auricularia).  Although the earwig did use its pincers to grapple with the grass stem, it did not seem to do any serious pinching.  What was more impressive was that the earwig barely paused chewing on the hollyhock (Alcea rosea) leaf as it fended off the attack.