[Question] Can someone identify this beast

[mlpotgieter]

I live in Cape Town and recently removed a section of floor boards which I replaced with tiles. While removing the boards I noticed small holes and suspected I had some type of wood destroying bug. After the wood was lying outside for a while (about 2 months) I eventually got around to sorting it, as I wanted to keep the pieces that were still intact. I found several of these bugs, ranging in size from about 8 to about 20 mm. Hope someone can tell me what they are, and how I can kill them if they are indeed pests.

[AndyD]

I'm not an expert but I've never seen a wood boring insect that has a ribbed type flexible body like that. I recon it's just a common or garden nasty pastie creepy crawly you have there.

[mother]

Looks like mr centipede visited mrs cricket, and some freak nuclear reaction made the kids grow into 20cm monsters!

[gordo]

isnt that a type of ear wick? they climb into your ears and eat away at your brain till you go mad. . .

[wynn]

Yeah! when I lived in 'Keep Toon' we used to call them 'earwigs'

[Dave A]

Yep - it's an earwig alright. Fascinating that the Wikipedia page doesn't recognise them as being present in our neck of the woods. They're covered in our SA training materials for pest control, although I don't recall ever being called out to resolve an earwig infestation problem.

They're not classed as a wood-destroying organism of economic signficance, and unless the floorboards had significant fungal decay while in the house, are unlikely to be the cause of the holes you found.

It is more likely they took up residence once you put the boards outside - a stack of floorboards in the open and subject to rain provides just the kind of damp shelter habitat they prefer.

[mlpotgieter]

Looks like mr centipede visited mrs cricket, and some freak nuclear reaction made the kids grow into 20cm monsters!

hhmm sounds possible... but these are 20mm not 20 cm

[AndyD]

Yep - it's an earwig alright. Fascinating that the Wikipedia page doesn't recognise them as being present in our neck of the woods.

Did you edit the page accordingly?

[Dave A]

Did you edit the page accordingly?

S'pose I should. I'm not sure of their distribution in Africa, though. I know they are found in Southern Africa - don't know about the rest of the continent.

[Proffessor]

All I know is that a bug that ugly needs to have a private meeting with Mr. Shoe in bout half a second