Forcepfly
The forcepfly is a flat, mysterious insect with long, many-veined wings. The male has a big pair of pincers at the end of his body, a bit like an earwig. It is so secretive that scientists still know very little about it.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
It comes out at night. People sometimes find it under logs near streams or at lights after dark.
Its babies have never been found, so nobody knows what they look like.
It is the only living member of its whole insect family in North America.
Its flat body may help it squeeze into cracks in the ground, and it might even dig in the soil.
Most asked questions about Forcepfly
?Why is it called a forcepfly?
The male has a big pair of pincers, like forceps, at the end of his body.
?Where does the forcepfly live?
In eastern North America, from Canada down to Florida and west to Kansas.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Merope tuber
- Group
- Other insects
- Family
- Meropeidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Mecoptera > Meropeidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Earwigfly
Where the facts come from
- Merope tuber (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by MJ Hatfield. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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