Earwigs are omnivores that eat a surprisingly wide range of foods, including plants, other insects, fungi, and decaying organic matter. Their diet shifts depending on what’s available, which is why they show up in gardens, orchards, compost piles, and occasionally inside homes.
Plants, Flowers, and Fruits
In the garden, earwigs feed on soft plant tissue. They chew on vegetables, flowers, berries, ornamental shrubs, and fruit trees. Seedlings are especially vulnerable: young plants may lose entire leaves or have their stems chewed through overnight. On older plants, earwig damage shows up as irregular holes in leaves or ragged, chewed edges that can look a lot like caterpillar damage.
Fruits are fair game too. On stone fruits like peaches and plums, earwigs leave shallow gouges or bore holes that extend deep into the flesh. Strawberries are another common target. If you’re finding damage on strawberries but no slime trails, earwigs are a more likely culprit than slugs or snails. They also feed on flower buds and petals, particularly on dahlias, zinnias, and marigolds, which is a common frustration for ornamental gardeners.
Insects and Other Prey
The flip side of the earwig’s reputation as a garden pest is its role as a predator. Earwigs actively hunt soft-bodied insects, and aphids are their favorite prey. A single European earwig can consume around 100 aphids per day, according to research from Australia’s CSIRO, making them genuinely valuable for pest control in crops like canola and apple orchards.
Beyond aphids, earwigs prey on caterpillars, mites, pear psylla, and the eggs of various insects. They’re particularly effective at eating codling moth eggs, which makes them a useful presence in fruit orchards even as they occasionally nibble on the fruit itself. This dual nature, part pest and part beneficial predator, is what makes earwigs complicated for gardeners to manage. In many situations, the insects they eat cause more crop damage than the earwigs themselves do.
Decaying Matter and Fungi
Earwigs are also scavengers and detritivores, meaning they break down dead and rotting organic material. They feed on decaying leaves, decomposing plant debris, dead insects, and other small organisms. Fungi and moss round out this part of their diet. This scavenging habit is why earwigs tend to congregate in mulch, leaf litter, compost bins, and under logs or stones where damp, decaying material accumulates. In this role, they’re actually contributing to nutrient cycling in your soil.
What Earwigs Eat Indoors
When earwigs end up inside your house, they’re not there for the food. They typically wander in while seeking moisture or shelter, especially during hot, dry weather or heavy rain. Indoors, they don’t have much to eat. They may nibble on houseplant leaves, crumbs, or any damp organic material they encounter, but they can’t establish a food supply inside a typical home. An earwig indoors is usually lost, not infesting.
How to Spot Earwig Feeding Damage
Earwig damage on foliage looks like irregular, jagged holes scattered across leaves, often concentrated around the edges. Because earwigs feed at night, you rarely catch them in the act. The easiest way to confirm they’re responsible is to check the tight, dark spaces around damaged plants during the day: under pots, between overlapping leaves, inside flower heads, or beneath mulch. You’ll often find both the earwigs and their small dark droppings clustered in these hiding spots.
The damage pattern can be confused with caterpillars or slugs. To tell the difference, look for caterpillar webbing or droppings (small pellets), or the shiny slime trails that slugs and snails leave behind. If neither is present, earwigs are the likely cause. Seedlings and soft-petaled flowers tend to suffer the most, while tougher, established plants usually tolerate earwig feeding without serious harm.