IS THIS A CLAW OR PART OF AN INSECT?

well thats seems like a wasp's stinger to me

Thanks..never found a wasp, though, but it's conceivable it got in thru an open window and died somewhere else.

so what did u do to it

I took the pic and then threw this piece away.

-Kamen

in the insect world if it looks like a cockroach smell like it doesn't mean its a cockroach so it could be anything
insects are outta this world lolz

i took a look at some wasp stinger pics, or what I could discern of the stinger (part of it must be inside the body of the wasp, I guess?) and this doesn't seem to look too much like that..this looks more like a claw of some type...maybe from a beetle? I have no idea..but it is strange! Especially when I didn't find anything else.

- Kamen

how big was it , it could be something off a bug but confirm its not from a reptile where are u from ?

It was only about a 1/2" in length total...small, but if that's just a tiny part of something else, the something else must have been considerably larger. I don't think it could be from a reptile, it was very insect like in appearence to me. I'm in Northern New Jersey and I've never even seen a garden snake in my backyard!

- Kamen

thats a part of an earwig, they hav pinchers on their tails, but one of them broke off of this earwig after it died. theres a picture in the link in case some1 wants 2 reference it if u dont believe me
http://www.sactorose.org/ipm/12orthops/12earwig.jpg

I'm still not convinced..it does look similar, but overall, the shape of the two is different to my eyes. there's a second 'claw' on the photo I posted, but I don't see that on the earwig photo. Thanks for posting the photo, though.

- Kamen

Certainly looks to be the back end of an earwig though incomplete..missing the other pincher.

I agree, it looks similiar, but the base of the earwig photo that was linked to is much thicker than the base of the piece I found. The 'claw' seems much thinner on the one I found. Thanks for all the comments, still.
- Justin

This is most certainly the remains of a long dead earwing. Often times, and this includes the dominant species here in the states ironically named the european earwing, the forcep-like cerci will be different in males and females. The female's being relatively straight and kind of parallel, and the male's being curved aswell as barbed (the second claw). You can see the remnants of 3 pairs of legs in the photo as well.

A pretty neat pic though...

http://crawford.tardigrade.net/bugs/BugofMonth24.html

OK, now I believe it is an earwig, based on those drawings in your link above. Now that I see what it was my first reaction is 'ugh!'...I wonder how this part of it wound up on my carpet...I've never found the rest of it (thankfully). Maybe one of my dogs somehow brought it back into the house with them.

Thanks to everyone for all the help in identifying this.

- Kamen