
Specimen image via iDigBio · BY-NC
Chelisochidae
Sign in to saveChelisochidae is a family of earwigs whose members are commonly known as black earwigs. The family contains a total of approximately 96 species, spread across sixteen genera in three subfamilies.
Museum specimens
- Specimen records
- 10
- With media
- 2
- Family
- Chelisochidae
- Collections
- MHNCA, UHIM, GUAM, MZLU
- Recorded in
- Mexico, United States, Guam, Sri Lanka
~2 min read
Encyclopedic overview
3 sectionsContents
- Genera
- References
- External links
Chelisochidae is a family of earwigs whose members are commonly known as black earwigs. The family contains a total of approximately 96 species, spread across sixteen genera in three subfamilies.
They are primarily located in the more tropical Afrotropical, Australasian, and Oriental realms, even though some species, such as Chelisoches morio, are cosmopolitan. They are often dark in color, lending to their common name, and can vary in size. They can be easily identified due to a certain characteristic in their tarsi, involving a ventral projection on the second tarsal segment. Like most earwigs, they are omnivores, and their diet consists of the larvae of leaf-mining insects, as well as certain types of vegetation.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Chelisochidae” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.