{"id":11693,"date":"2025-05-15T13:18:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T13:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.garden-tricks.top\/?p=11693"},"modified":"2025-05-15T13:18:00","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T13:18:00","slug":"this-insect-often-lives-in-our-bathrooms-is-this-insect-dangerous-and-why-does-it-appear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.garden-tricks.top\/?p=11693","title":{"rendered":"This insect often lives in our bathrooms. Is this insect dangerous and why does it appear?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One day, common silverfish settled in our apartment. At that time, I had already been studying biology for six months, so my knowledge was enough to understand that these were not flytraps or mutant cockroaches. I was even able to identify the species! But I had no idea that I was sharing a bathroom with legendary animals.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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You can read on the Internet that silverfish are ancient insects that appeared long before dinosaurs. But no.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The silverfish family appeared relatively recently – 100-110 million years ago, at the same time as ants and much later than mammals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The funny thing about silverfish is that they are very primitive, but surprisingly effective.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Our kids are primarily wingless insects. Their ancestors never knew how to fly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most similar insects are highly specialized survivors, living in strictly specific conditions and within a small area. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But silverfish can be found everywhere where humans live!<\/p>\n\n\n

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All silverfish need is high (75-97%) humidity and room temperature. The animals will easily find food themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Silverfish are able to digest cellulose and chitin, and they really like starch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That’s why they eat everything from glue to books.<\/p>\n\n\n

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As if that weren’t enough, silverfish are also surprisingly tenacious. Their tiny bodies, no more than 2 centimeters long, are covered with silvery scales that easily come off upon contact. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That’s why silverfish slip out of the webs and jaws of apartment predators.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The most interesting thing is that the scales are restored over time. And not only them. Silverfish grow back lost legs, antennae and tail bristles in just 3-4 weeks. Since the development of insects is limited by molting, growth and regeneration are a sore subject for most of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adult insects, as a rule, do not molt, so when they lose a limb, they are forced to live out their days as best they can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But silverfish molt up to 30 times a year, even when they reach maturity. And their lifespan is as long as 3 years! Unprecedented long-livers by insect standards!<\/p>\n\n\n

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Everything written above creates an image of them as extremely harsh and tenacious creatures that can easily survive in almost any conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that’s not quite true. The animals do have a couple of drawbacks. First, they are almost defenseless. Silverfish have weak jaws, run relatively slowly, and their scaly defense takes a long time to recover.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The second problem is their low fertility. A female will lay less than 100 eggs in her entire life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is much less fertile than cockroaches and other household pests, so it is often displaced by them. Which is what happened in my house.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Too bad. Unlike cockroaches, these arthropods come out strictly at night, avoid eating human food, and do not carry parasites and diseases dangerous to homosapiens. Perhaps their waste products can cause allergies. But even this does not happen often.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One day, common silverfish settled in our apartment. At that time, I had already been studying biology for six months, so my knowledge was enough to understand that these were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11694,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tips-and-tricks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garden-tricks.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garden-tricks.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garden-tricks.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garden-tricks.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garden-tricks.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11693"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.garden-tricks.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11695,"href":"https:\/\/www.garden-tricks.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11693\/revisions\/11695"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garden-tricks.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garden-tricks.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garden-tricks.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garden-tricks.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}