Bearded dragons should not eat earwigs. While bearded dragons are opportunistic omnivores that eat a wide variety of insects, earwigs pose several risks that make them a poor and potentially dangerous feeder choice. There are safer, more nutritious insects readily available.
Why Earwigs Are Risky for Bearded Dragons
The main concerns with earwigs come down to three things: potential parasites, chemical exposure, and their hard exoskeleton.
Earwigs are wild-caught insects, which means they carry whatever they’ve been exposed to in the environment. Pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers commonly found in gardens and yards can concentrate in an insect’s body. A bearded dragon eating a contaminated earwig ingests those chemicals directly. There’s no way to know what a wild earwig has crawled through.
Wild insects also carry internal parasites. Earwigs are known hosts for mermithid worms, a type of parasitic nematode that develops inside the earwig’s body. While mermithid worms specifically target invertebrates rather than reptiles, earwigs can harbor other parasites and bacteria from soil and decaying organic matter where they live. Captive-bred feeder insects, by contrast, are raised in controlled environments specifically to minimize parasite loads.
Earwigs also have a relatively tough exoskeleton compared to softer feeder insects like crickets or dubia roaches. Their pincers (cerci) at the rear of the body are hardened and could irritate the digestive tract, particularly in younger or smaller bearded dragons. While adult bearded dragons can handle some chitin from insect shells, harder or more irregularly shaped exoskeletons increase the chance of digestive discomfort or, in rare cases, impaction.
The Pincer Problem
Earwigs are best known for the pair of curved pincers on their abdomen. These pincers are strong enough to pinch human skin, and they’re made of the same tough material as the rest of the exoskeleton. When swallowed, they don’t soften easily. For a bearded dragon, especially a juvenile, those pincers could scratch or irritate the lining of the mouth, throat, or stomach. Even if a single earwig might pass through without issue, it’s an unnecessary risk when better options exist.
Earwigs Offer Little Nutritional Value
Even setting aside the safety concerns, earwigs aren’t a particularly good food source. They’re small, so the effort-to-nutrition ratio is poor. They haven’t been studied or standardized for reptile nutrition the way common feeder insects have. Crickets, dubia roaches, black soldier fly larvae, and silkworms all have well-documented protein, fat, and calcium profiles that reptile keepers can work with. Earwigs are a nutritional unknown by comparison.
Bearded dragons thrive on a rotating diet of gut-loaded, captive-bred insects dusted with calcium and vitamin supplements. That level of control simply isn’t possible with a random earwig from the garden.
What to Do If Your Bearded Dragon Ate One
If your bearded dragon grabbed an earwig before you could stop it, don’t panic. A single earwig is unlikely to cause serious harm to a healthy adult dragon. Watch for signs of digestive trouble over the next 24 to 48 hours: loss of appetite, lethargy, dark or unusually foul-smelling stool, or straining to defecate. These could indicate irritation or a mild reaction. If your dragon seems normal and passes stool without difficulty, it likely handled the earwig just fine.
The concern is more about repeated exposure than a single incident. Regular consumption of wild-caught insects increases the cumulative risk of parasite transmission and chemical exposure.
Safe Feeder Insects for Bearded Dragons
Stick with commercially bred insects that are widely available and nutritionally appropriate:
- Dubia roaches: High in protein, low in fat, soft-bodied, and easy to gut-load. Many keepers consider these the best all-around feeder.
- Crickets: The most common feeder insect. Affordable and nutritious, though they can escape enclosures easily and have a shorter shelf life.
- Black soldier fly larvae: Naturally high in calcium, which is unusual among feeder insects. A great supplement to the rotation.
- Silkworms: Soft, high in protein, and well-tolerated. They’re more expensive but excellent for picky eaters or dragons recovering from illness.
- Hornworms: High moisture content makes them good for hydration. Best used as an occasional treat due to their high water and lower protein ratio.
All feeder insects should be gut-loaded (fed nutritious greens and vegetables for 24 to 48 hours before offering them) and dusted with a calcium supplement at most feedings. This ensures your bearded dragon gets the nutrients it needs without the risks that come with wild-caught insects like earwigs.