Silverfish In A Dish

Perhaps called silverfish because the skin is shiny like a fish or because they move like fish, these wingless insects live in cupboards and bathrooms.
A hygrometer on my kitchen wall shows that the relative moisture content of air is a fairly constant 65 per cent (may need calibrating but should be approximately correct). I never see silverfish and it may be that they cannot survive in such dry conditions.
The dish was produced by Johnson Brothers of Staffordshire.
Please add a comment with the name by which silverfish are known in your area and country.

In connection with comments for this video, I wrote the text of a nursery rhyme:

Silverfish on a dish,
How you scamper, scramble and scurry!
Silverfish on a dish,
I set you down and away you hurry.

Copyright © 2010 Andrew Burbidge

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• silver
• fish
• silverfish
• wingless
• insect
• bristletails
• cupboard
• bathroom
• firebrat
• pest
• sugar
• mites
• zilvervis
• silberfisch
• poisson
• d'argent
• pesciolino
• d'argento
• lepisma
• pez
• plateado
• tisanuro
• srebro
• ryb
• silverfisk
• sølvfisk
• sølvkre
• sølvkræ
• nursery
• rhyme

[UrusaiBaka4400]

Holy chiz!!! Yesterday night i was working on a project. I got hungry and wanted to pour some pretzels in a bowl. I open my dishwasher to grab the bowl and WTF! I see this creature frippling all over inside of it. I mean, I see some of these once in a blue freakin moon, but this one was the largest one I've seen... EVER! it is at least the width of a thumbs nail bit. Finally! I know what these are for the longest time I thought they were deangerous. well maybe except for the reproducing part

[andrewburbidge]

@UrusaiBaka4400 If you wonder what something is you could video it and upload the video. Put a question there -- and use the tags; insect, bug, identification, domestic, household, etc.

But silverfish can't grow very big. I'm not sure what you meant about the width. Maybe its width was the same as the width of a thumbnail -- enormous! Not a silverfish.

[Scythemantis]

Any time I find silverfish (which is quite rare, really) I try to catch and keep them. They can live a long time being fed just paper, fish flakes, and moisture from you breathing into the jar. They're fun to watch, I don't know why anyone thinks they're so scary or gross.

[andrewburbidge]

@Scythemantis So you find that silverfish can survive on the moisture from breath. I'd asked about that earlier in these comments.

Please tell, does the moisture condense inside the jar?

And would the silverfish survive just as well if you didn't breathe into the jar? That's a difficult question. That's why experiments are run with controls.

Cockroaches have an organ for extracting water that passes the air over a concentrated solution. Do silverfish?

Thanks for adding more to this enquiry.

[andrewburbidge]

@Aeshir2 I thought about it for a while and came up with this -

Silverfish on a dish,

How you scamper, scramble and scurry!

Silverfish on a dish,

I set you down and away you hurry.

Copyright © 2010 Andrew Burbidge

[Aeshir2]

SILVERFISH, IN A DISH! SILVERFISH, IN A DISH! SILVERFISH, IN A DISH!

[JoyDivisiongirl]

i admit,i take great satisfaction in killing one of these if i ever find them. they make my skin itch.

[ThisIsElliot1911]

@Scythemantis I have 3 of these in a box too! They're all over my university halls so they're not uncommon.

I feed mine dry pasta, they'll eat anything starchy though to be honest. I also put in their box damp paper to add moisture for them. Keeping newspaper in your bathroom and allowing the steam to get to it makes for a really good way of keeping moisture in the environment.

[BunnyUnite]

cute little buggers

[kingofwii]

Thumbs up if Minecraft brought you here!

[jull444]

we once had very little of these on the bathroom when i was kid.. it was my favorit animal and i sued to sit and play with them in my hands when i was takin a poo :D

[Scythemantis]

@andrewburbidge Yes, a little "fog" in the container seems adequate for them. Strangely I've found that if I give them actual water, such as in a tiny dish or a spray of droplets from a bottle, they usually die. Other people I know have found that they must be kept almost totally dry as well. I do find most of mine in garages or attics that saw humidity but never outright moisture. Their needs are poorly studied I think.