Every morning for the past 32 years, I have been counting earwigs. Here at Marshalls Heath, a small nature reserve in Hertfordshire, the only site where these nocturnal insects have been so systematically monitored for so long, the number of common earwigs has declined dramatically.
Using a light trap (equipment that entices nocturnal flying insects towards an artificial light and into a box until they can be counted and released in the morning), I found 282 earwigs in a single night in 1996. In 2024, only 31 adults were trapped in that entire year.
