Silverfish: useful or harmful?

Silverfish, also known as silverfish, are usually just wanted to fight or otherwise get rid of them. We'll introduce you to the animal first.

You go into the bathroom at night or early in the morning, drunk asleep; outside it is still pitch black. You feel for the light switch, the lighting fills the room with glaring light - and a number of silver animals scurry into the shadows of the walls, skirting boards and crevices as fast as an arrow. When you step into the shower, you find a copy of the little troublemakers there: a silverfish (Lepisma saccharina), which was probably caught in the smooth walls of the wet room at night. Quite uncomfortable when we have small insects romping about at night. We introduce you to the silverfish in detail.

Here you will find out what silverfish exactly are, how they feed and what conditions they need to survive. Then we clarify the question of this article: Are silverfish useful or harmful? Finally, you will find information on how to combat the small subtenants.

What are silverfish?

Silverfish are real urine insects. The wingless animals belong to the order of the fish (zygentoma). This has been populating the earth for about 300 million years, which speaks for a successful survival strategy. The body of the silverfish is covered with scales that shine silver in the light. It has two long feelers on its head with which it can scan its surroundings. At the end of the body there are three also thread-like attachments, also sensory organs that are sensitive to touch. The eggs of the silverfish are white, only one millimeter in size and are usually hidden in cracks. The larvae that hatch are initially white, but otherwise look like miniatures of the adult animals. After the 2nd When they molt, they also wear the shiny silver scales. After 5 to 7 larval stages, the larva has grown into a fully grown silverfish with a length of 8 to 10 mm. Even in the adult stage, the fish continues to grow very slowly and molt every 2 to 3 weeks. All stages of development shy away from light and are therefore nocturnal.

Tip: In addition to the silverfish, there are related fish that also like to move in with us: oven fish (Thermobia domestica) love higher temperatures and cope better with drought than silverfish. Paper fish (Ctenolepisma longicaudata) love it cooler and drier than silverfish do. They are also very fond of paper in the form of newspapers, wallpaper or books, which is what gave them their name.

Silverfish: habitat and nutrition

Optimal living conditions for the silverfish are 27 ° C air temperature and over 75% relative humidity. At below 15 ° C the eggs can no longer develop and below 10 ° C the fish completely stop their activity. At temperatures above 35 ° C, all stages soon die and even if the relative humidity is below 30%, survival is no longer possible. If the living conditions are bearable, however, the fish can survive a hunger period of a maximum of 10 months and live up to 4 years. Your food is everything that is sugary or starchy, which is where its common name "sugar guest" comes from.

Tip toonatural enemies of the silverfish: The silverfish has enemies both outdoors and indoors - and not just us humans. Also house spiders and the Common earwig (Forficula auricularia) hunt and eat the fish.

Silverfish in the house

Outside of our apartments, silverfish can be found in bird nests, which are also warm and humid and provide food through the bird droppings and other debris. But above all, the little fish appears as a cultural follower in our houses and apartments.

Depending on the preferred living conditions, it is most often found in boiler rooms, bathrooms and under the refrigerator. However, it likes to roam the whole apartment in search of food. An absolute prerequisite for a good silverfish life are cracks and crevices into which it can escape from sunlight during the day. Between the crevices, behind loose tiles or baseboards, in wall joints, under and behind pieces of furniture, it feels good and lays its eggs protected. In the house it likes to consume supplies such as flour, semolina, pasta, rice or sugar, but yeast, meat or the like are not spurned either. Because many adhesives in books, paper, wallpaper or starched textiles also contain starch, they can be damaged by scraping and pitting. Every crumb, every flake of skin and every hair on the floor is potential food for a silverfish.

If you are looking for an effective remedy against silverfish, we recommend our Plantura ant remedythat too Ants (Formicidae) and Cellar lobsters (Porcellio scaber) effectively combats - without toxic pesticides getting into your living spaces.

Tip silverfish as an indicator of moisture: Silverfish can only reproduce and reproduce optimally when it is cozy, warm and fairly humid. So if you have not just a few, but an entire army of silver lodgers, that suggests that there is such a zone in your house. The problem with this is that moisture and heat also encourage mold to grow. Incidentally, this is also consumed by silverfish. So in the event of a silverfish plague, first of all look for the warm, humid area and eliminate it. In this article too Home remedies for silverfish find out what you can do about damp rooms.

Conclusion: are silverfish useful or harmful?

Silverfish are not hygienic pests, rarely storage pests and sometimes they do little damage to wallpaper or paper. They cause great disgust and disgust in many people when they are discovered. They only become really harmful when they appear en masse. If this is the case, however, the fish are often not the only problem. Mold and moisture then urgently need to be searched for, found and combated. Because the fish indicated the problem (and partially eaten it), they could be described as useful. Their feeding activity isn't necessarily bad either: they even eat house dust mites and keep inaccessible cracks and crevices clean. Nevertheless, we usually do not want to have them around us - at least not in the kitchen, bedroom and other sensitive areas.

We have therefore determined for you how to It is best to fight silverfish can. Among other things, we put our Plantura ant remedy that can also be used against silverfish. It will reliably lead to the imminent demise of your silver lodger. Besides, we have all effective ones here Home remedies for silverfish gathered for you.