No idea. I have tons of them, but I was thinking more about mammals such as raccoons, 'possums, squirrels, etc. I began thinking flies and gnats when time ran out.
Well, I'm German, and it didn't to me, but first I typed 'edgehog' because that's who actually enjoyed staying in our pile of compost in the garden, but hey there's an H missing. And with one funny wrong thought in your brain, the correct one just won't come to mind.
My brain doesn't associate insects with animals. So I was thinking more along the lines of an animal that might raid a compost pile like raccoons are known to raid garbage cans. I wouldn't say to someone, "be careful when you go in the garage because they're a nest of small stinging animals in the rafters".
That is how the 'Earwig' got it's name, it was thought at one time that the earwig burrowed down peoples ears and laid eggs in the brain.......... (old wives tales)
It goes back quite a ways. At least to Old English "earwicga". It's the same in French (perce-oreille). So I'm guessing Northern Europe? It's different in Italian so I'll speculate that the Romans didn't bring the word. I wonder if it started as a kenning.
I actually thought that earth worm was the the one that would crawl into your ears and I got compost bin denizen which doesn't even look like an English word yay
So, on the M quiz, Moose is the correct answer for the "largest deer" prompt, which is accurate. But then here, Elk is the supposed correct answer for the same prompt. So not only is that wrong, but it's internally inconsistent within the series.
Here's the etymology of earwig
In the USA, we call the largest species of deer a "moose". We have another species of large (though smaller than a moose) deer called an elk.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moose