#anisolabididae

[forficulidae]

Euborellia arcanum (Family Anisolabididae) caring for her nymphs

by Lucas Garriga

[drhoz]

#3374 - Carcinophora occidentalis or Anisolabis flavocapitata

The former is a large earwig found in the SW of Australia, around Adelaide in south Australia, and a very small part of Aotearoa New Zealand where I suspect it was introduced by humans.

HOWEVER - there seems to be considerable confusion between C. occidentalis and Anisolabis flavocapitata, and until more work is done on Australia very poorly-known earwigs, I doubt the confusion will be solved any time soon. To quote Stephan Kleinfelder, on iNaturalist

"It seems that Anisolabididae is very messed up in Australia and many species are not properly characterized. There many species poorly described and assigned to wrong genera. Some species may be are not valid (like Carcinophora venusta, which I think is the same as C. occidentalis). Some genera like Zacheria are real mistery. How they look I guess nobody knows. Even paper with molecular data did not help much to resolve situation: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4450/10/3/72 On site you cited is written that Anisolabididae genera in Australia currently established based on morphological data, such as Anisolabis, Gonolabis and Carcinophora, are not monophyletic."

It also doesn't help that Anisolabis flavocapitata is only known from female specimens, originally collected in Perth.

Baldivis, Perth