What do Earwigs do in your ear?

[Ryewolf]

Despite popular belief, and its name (from the Old English for 'ear beetle'), the Common Earwig will not crawl into your ear while you sleep.... Both my Grandfather and father told me that they would crawl into your ear and bury into your brain..!! Mind you they were both practical jokers...!!!

Earwigs did like to hide in cauliflower and would come running out when my Grandmother would break them apart to clean prior to cooking, I still don't like cauliflower to this day, the earwigs I'm not bothered about...

Looks like there's several of them here on this thistle....

 

[sphexx]

Actually ... I wouldn’t be too dogmatic about that. I once had a fly stuck in my ear for a while after I’d tried to swat it away (not in UK) and there was this story yesterday:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/25/brown-recluse-spider-womans-ear
Earwigs get into any dark damp place during the day and the ear seems to fit that bill. If you think about it, in the past people had earthen floors, rush flooring, straw bedding and so on and I would expect a high population of insects etc. No evidence for this of course and the ‘old wives tale’ implies that earwigs have a strong attraction to the ear which is clearly wrong.

 

[Ryewolf]

Thanks Richard

 

[Tori_T]

...they would crawl into your ear and bury into your brain..!!

Well, it's not an earwig, but here's a report of a bug that died trying.