When I was coming up from the laundry room tonight, some movement caught my eye on the pavement outside the window. I checked it out to discover an orgy of earwigs feasting on the remains of a baby bird. I’ve never seen this before so I took a photo, naturally.
I didn’t know earwigs were carnivorous. I thought they just ate plant matter. Well, this gives me one more reason to be disgusted by them. shudder**shudder
I think earwigs are so vile I couldn’t even make myself look at your photo. I’ll rescue bees, wasps, or spiders and gently release them outside, but earwigs? EEK! Shudder. Pick up shoe. SMACK!
I love that the 1st ad at the bottom of this page is for crocodile repellant. Do you suppose it works for earwigs as well? 
Wait, now it has changed to frog baby bedding…that one is even weirder. Next I suppose it will be an add for ballet lessons.
I’m sort of relieved, for I had mistakenly read the thread title as “The grossest incest thingy I’ve seen in awhile…yecch.”
snort 
Well, I suppose some of those earwigs in the shot could be having an incestuous relationship with each other…
I thought I saw the same thing and yet…
I clicked on the link anyway.
Ah, earwigs…the incests of life…
Actually, I thought the photo was quite cool. Skeletonisers at work! Nature just taking care of business.
What kind of bedding do baby frogs need?
I don’t take care of frogs myself but my SO’s brother does, and yes, they do need some kind of special bedding. Moss maybe?
And I couldn’t look at the picture either. I know myself.
Heh. I like how the link to the earwig info posted by Dragwyr states that they’re “practically harmless”. I’ve had at least two in my life pinch the living hell out of me. Those ass pinchers hurt.
Besides that, they let off a really gross smell if you touch them, and they’re mean as well. I rescued one from drowning in a swimming pool once, and as soon as I set it on the ground it turned around and brandished its pinchers at me! Ungrateful little bastidge.
Actually, I think dead baby birds might have the edge on earwigs in the “Ewww!” department.
Last week I stopped by a public water fountain during a lunchtime run along the Chicago lakefront. As I bent down to slurp, I noticed a dead baby bird on the fountain - inches from my face. Tho earwig free, it was not pleasant.
It’s funny, but I always thought they smelled like band-aids. Maybe I’m just nuts, but really. Snort a band-aid, then an earwig. There’s a lot of similarity there.
And there’s a banquet of squick involved in suggesting you do that, too.
Oh my goodness, that was terrible! I was expecting to see a house centipede or toe-biter, or maybe one of those big leafy walkingsticks (the sorta gross kind). But that was REALLY gross. Reminds me of that day I came across a dead bird with a bunch of maggots writhing around and partying under its skin. Would that I’d gotten a video.
Earwigs creep me out anyway, for no good reason. shudder Thanks for posting!
