I try to train myself to enjoy most living things in all their variety, but when an earwig dropped into the sink while I was cleaning my bird feeder, I felt a little judgmental about the thing. There is something revolting about an earwig. Too squirmy, too zippy. Something that little, moving that fast, has got to be ashamed of something. They strike most people the same way.

But when it came down to it, I couldn’t think of anything especially harmful about the little blerbs. I didn’t think they caused a rash or nibbled at your armpits or left a slime trail or anything. So I launched an earwig appreciation effort: I Googled the sucker.

Well it turns out they do have a deleterious side. Says here that although earwigs helpfully eat various insects troublesome to vintners, earwig poop in enough quantity has an unsavory effect on the flavor of wine. Now, that didn’t strike me, in and of itself, as a sound reason to single out earwigs for scorn. I’d wager almost anyone’s poop is unwelcome in the wine barrel.

The name comes from an ancient superstition that the insects like to burrow into people’s ears, which is truly revolting. And it makes sense, since they like to hide in damp crevices. We most of us harbor more than one damp crevice, too, so it’s a shuddery proposition all around. The ear thing is considered an old wive’s tale, but I doubt that there’s nothing to it. I’m sure some earwigs have made it into some ears at some time or another. It doesn’t take too many of those incidents to solidify in the public imagination. And sure enough, there have been such cases, although no earwigs have been shown to lay eggs in there, or put in window treatments, or anything, let alone burrow into the brain and cause madness, which is sort of where our forebears were going with the scenario.

Something else causes the madness.

So, basically, except for that widely shared ick factor, there’s nothing really awful about earwigs. And there are some very interesting things. For instance, the male earwig has a penis as long as his own body and longer than the female’s. And it has a second one right next to it. Two super-long penises each, running in parallel. They are retractable when not in use, and when they are in use, only one of them does the penetrating. Most earwigs are right-dicked, and among the 15% of the sinister bent, most have had some damage to the right penis. So, the left dick is pretty much a spare, and it just, I don’t know, likes to watch. Earwigs are right-wangers.

Consummation is accomplished butt-to-butt. The female then lays her eggs in some damp crevice that is extremely unlikely to be your ear, and takes elaborate care of them, cleaning off the eggs and grooming and protecting them until they hatch. Then she continues to take care of them, through several molts. It’s the same old story. The hatchlings hang with Mom way past a reasonable age, skulking in the basement playing video games, and then they eat her. They eat her.

The maternal instinct is, in many ways, a self-effacing proposition.

Here’s where finding out about critters makes a human kinder. I still am not enamored of earwigs, but I’m looking forward to finding the next one, because I will be able to tell its sex. Only the males have that gross curved pincer thing going on in the buttular region. The females have straight butt horns. I never noticed that, and if I had, I might have assumed the straight-pincered one was just more relaxed. When I see my next earwig, I will be able to paddle past the initial revulsion and say: Hey there, Mary Ann! Or, How’s it hanging, Lance? And right there, I’m interested.

Education is the antidote to bigotry. Even earwigotry.