Pincer plot twist: How female earwigs evolved deadly claws for love and war

Female earwigs show same pattern of outsized growth linked to sexual selection as male's iconic pincers.

This means that females might be fighting for mates too specifically for access to non-aggressive males challenging long-standing assumptions in evolutionary biology.

Male ears are known to show positive allometry in their forceps -- pincer-like appendages at the tip of the abdomen -- which are believed to have evolved as weapons.