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I recently noticed a small hole in one of my ghost peppers and what looks like a claw sticking out of it. When I touch the pepper, the insect runs back inside. What is this?

To me, that loooks like earwig.

good job, applestar! Yes, the "claw" is actually its back end:



The picture is close up and giant, but they are usually less than an inch long.

Yes, that must be what it is. Thank you!

I had tons of these things in my yard when I moved in. Literally everytime you moved something, 3-5 of them would crawl out from under it and we'd find a couple in the house everyday. I put out 6 plastic cups with half an inch of vegetable oil in the bottom. They crawl in, get covered in oil and can't crawl out. After one week, all 6 cups had about 100 earwigs in them (along with beetles, spiders, roaches and other bugs). I emptied them out, put more oil in them and got similar results the next week. The third time, there were much less bugs and it took a lot longer for them to fill up. Since then, I rarely see them in the yard and never in the house. Our lemon tree is doing a lot better too, as the leaves are not all eaten.