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6 in a controlled experiment. Like other insects, the European
earwig has its host of parasites and predators. The two common parasites are tachinids, Bigonicheta
setipennis (Fall.) and Rhacodineura
antiqua Meig. These were studied
in Portland, Oregon by Atwell and Stearns in 1926 and were found to be quite
effective in killing their host. A roundworm, Mermis nigrescens
Dujardin or M. subnigrescens Cobb, was found in the abdominal and thoracic portions of the insect by G. Steiner (Guppy,
1941). A gregarine, Clepsidrina
ovata (Dufour, 1828) is said to occur in earwigs in Europe by Crumb
(1941); and H. E. Ewing of the Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine,
tells of the nymphs of a mite species belonging to the family Tyroglyphidae
that, although not parasitic, annoy the earwigs to such an extent that death
ensues. Crumb (1941) has observed the
fungus Entomophthora forficulae among earwig nymphs and a muscardine fungus,
Metarrhizium anisophilae Sorokin, infesting earwigs on some
occasions. The green muscardine fungus, Oospora
destructor (Metschni). Delacroix on European earwig and other insects in Oregon
was reportedly first studied by Barss and Stearns in 1925. Among important predators of the European earwig, the
ground beetle Pterostichus vulgaris in a controlled experiment by
Crumb (1941) was
reported to have eaten on the average one earwig every two days.
However, Ormerod (1898) Walton and
Kearns (1931) report that P. vulgaris is a voracious feeder on
strawberries in England. Pterostichusalgidus Lec. is a native
predatory beetle common to western Washington, which in confinement ate an
average of one earwig every five to seven days in an experiment by Crumb,
Eide and Bonn (1941). In another experiment, performed by the same persons, Carabus
nemoralis |