Silent Spring for the giant earwig?

[Fabian Haas]

John,

well, at the genus and species level, there is no real cladistic or
phylogenetic research on earwigs, I did some higher level ('family')
research on it. However, there has never been any doubt that Labidura
herculeana is a species of Labidura and it was partly synonymised with
Labidura riparia. For all that see Brindle's St. Helena paper.

 From what I have seen in London and Copenhagen, it is definitely a
Labidura, and I dont think it is riparia, too many differences, but an
own species. In addition it is not as widely distributed as riparia, not
even on St. Helena it self, so some ecological differences too.

Labidura riparia has a world wide distribution, it lives on mainly sandy
ground, i.e. river banks (name) and sea shores (more linked to sand that
to water), some populations fly. And so it has good chances for being
distributed by rafting or winds. It occurs on many islands and all over
the world, and so the species seemingly is rather robust when
distributed. To my judgement there is in general no indication that it
is a tramp species, such as Forficula auricularia, and so L riparia
distributed by its own devices and not as hitch hiker.

So I think herculeana is a transformed riparia which came at one point
on the island. To figure out from which part of the world would be
difficult without genetics. Probably major winds and currents and the
origin of the other faunal and floral elements has been figured out, but
I am not aware of it at the moment. Probable this riparia came with all
the other stuff ... ;-)

Distribution: Popham did something in 2000, which I think, is not a good
publication

However I would turn to my earwigs website, which holds 25.000
distribution records of earwigs. Please see my website for my systematic
papers
Best Fabian



Popham EJ (2000) The geographical distribution of the Dermaptera
(Insecta) with reference to continental drift. Journal of Natural
History, 34 (10): 2007-2027.
Brindle A (1970) Dermaptera. La faune terrestre de l'île de
Sainte-Helene, 1: 213-227.