Silverfish

Latin Name: Lepisma saccharina

Months of Activity: January - December

Silverfish are elongated, flattened insects typically 13–25 millimetres long. They are active at night and hide during the day. When objects are moved where they are hiding, they dart out and seek new hiding places.

Appearance

Silverfish are born whitish, but develop a greyish hue and metallic shine as they get older. They have three long cerci at the tips of their abdomens, one parallel to their body, one facing left, and one facing right. They also have two small compound eyes.

Lifecycle

The female lays groups of less than fifty eggs at once, deposited in small crevices. The eggs are oval-shaped, whitish, about 0.8 millimetres long, and take between two weeks and two months to hatch. Silverfish usually lay fewer than one hundred eggs in their lifetime.

When the nymphs hatch, they are whitish in colour, and look like smaller adults. As they moult, young silverfish develop a greyish appearance and a metallic shine, eventually becoming adults after three months to three years. They may go through seventeen to sixty-six moults in their lifetime, sometimes thirty in a single year, which is much more than usual for an insect.

Pest Control

Silverfish thrive in damp dark environments, so the key to eradicating them is to eradicate these environments.

• You could use a residual insecticide, which you can buy from hardware or DIY stores. Treatment needs to be applied to all possible hiding places such as cracks, crevices, inside floor mouldings, around heating and hot water pipes, in and behind furniture, cupboards, even attics.
• Remove old boxes and stacks of papers, magazines, books and fabrics.
• Often reducing available water and lowering the humidity in the home with dehumidifiers and fans can help.
• Repair leaking plumbing and make sure areas such as kitchens, bathrooms and laundry rooms are well ventilated.
• Keeping your home clean and free from damp will help prevent reinfestation.

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