Evolution of Earwig Insects - Assignment Example

Development stages connecting the molts are referred to as instars. Earwigs, after hatching, live for an estimated one year. The earwigs begin mating in autumn and are mostly found together in winter or autumn. During mating, males and females live in soil, debris, or crevices. After mating, sperms are capable of being in the female for a long duration, months, before fertilization of eggs. Between mid-winter and early spring, males leave. Thereafter, females start laying between 20 and 80 pearly white eggs. Parasitic earwigs are viviparous; hence produce live young ones during birth (Fisher, 2005).

Structure and Function
The reproductive system of the earwig females comprises; lateral oviducts, genital chambers, ovaries, and spermatheca. Sperm is stored in the spermatheca, and the egg leaves the female’s body through lateral ducts. The female opening, referred to as gonopore, is located beneath the seventh abdominal section. Ovaries are primitive and; hence, polytrophic (Robinson, 2005).

Evolution of Earwig Insects
Fossil documentation of Dermaptera begins during Late Triassic up to Early Jurassic duration approximately 208 million years ago in Australia and also England. The records illustrate around 70 specimens of Archidermaptera, the extinct suborder. Some modern earwig traits illustrated by neonatologists are not found in the earliest fossils; however, the adults possessed five segmented tarsi, adequately developed ovipositors, long-segmented cerci, and veined tegmina (Fisher, 2006).

Additional Interests
 The major earwig species are Forficulina. This is divided into nine families comprising 180 genera; for instance, Forficula auricularia, commonly referred to as the European Earwig. Species represented in Forficulina are not parasites, have functional wings, and are free living. They possess unsegmented cerci that resemble huge forceps-like structures (Robinson, 2005). Read More