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		<title>Conservation news</title>
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	<title>Saint Helena Island environmental news</title>
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					<title>Gone for good: world&#8217;s largest earwig declared extinct</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2014/11/gone-for-good-worlds-largest-earwig-declared-extinct/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2014/11/gone-for-good-worlds-largest-earwig-declared-extinct/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Nov 2014 23:06:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
					</author>
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					<guid isPermaLink="false">http://news.mongabaydev.co.uk/2014/11/gone-for-good-worlds-largest-earwig-declared-extinct/</guid>

					
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							<![CDATA[Saint Helena Island and United Kingdom]]>
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											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Environment, Extinction, Global Environmental Crisis, Green, Habitat Loss, Insects, Invasive Species, Islands, Strange, and Wildlife]]>
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											<description>
							<![CDATA[A female common earwig (Forficula auricularia) in defensive posture. The world&#8217;s largest earwig has been declared extinct. Photo by: Public Domain. The world has lost a giant: this week the IUCN Red List officially declared St. Helena giant earwig (Labidura herculeana) extinct. While its length of 80 millimeters (3.1 inches) may not seem like much, [&#8230;]]]>
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							<![CDATA[A female common earwig (Forficula auricularia) in defensive posture. The world&#8217;s largest earwig has been declared extinct. Photo by: Public Domain. The world has lost a giant: this week the IUCN Red List officially declared St. Helena giant earwig (Labidura herculeana) extinct. While its length of 80 millimeters (3.1 inches) may not seem like much, it&#8217;s massive for an earwig and impressive for an insect. &#8220;The species is large, charismatic and of iconic status on the island; while there is still a slim possibility that it may still persist in some remote location, the balance of evidence points towards the species being extinct,&#8221; reads the updated listing of the herculean earwig. Only found on the island of St. Helena in the remote southern Atlantic, experts believe the St. Helena giant earwig was pushed to extinction by the removal of sheltering stone in its small habitat for construction purposes. In addition, the earwig had to contend with an invasion of predatory mice, rats, spiders, and centipedes on the island. The St. Helena giant earwig was first described over two hundred years ago&#8212;in 1798&#8212;by the Danish scientist, Johan Christian Fabricius, a student of Carl Linnaeus. However, confusion over the earwig&#8217;s taxonomy left it largely overlooked even by entomologists. The earwig was last seen alive in 1967. But body parts have been collected as recently as this year, although unfortunately these are likely from individuals that died decades ago. A specimen of the St. Helena giant earwig in the Jamestown Museum. Photo by:&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2014/11/gone-for-good-worlds-largest-earwig-declared-extinct/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-24435</doi>				</item>
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