the.com/silverfish
a wingless wallpaper goth that outlived the dinosaurs by eating your books.
means A small, wingless, silvery insect that wriggles like a fish and feeds on starchy materials like paper, glue, and book bindings, often found in damp dark corners of homes.
from A plain English compound: "silver" for its metallic, scaly sheen and "fish" for its tapering shape and the darting, fish-like wiggle it makes when scuttling across a floor. The name has been in English for centuries, a straightforward bit of folk observation rather than any classical borrowing. Its scientific order, Zygentoma (formerly Thysanura, "fringed tail" from Greek), nods to the three bristle-like filaments trailing from its rear — and the lineage really is ancient, with relatives going back hundreds of millions of years.
- age
- Older than dinosaurs by 100 million years
- diet
- Devours glue, paper, sugar, even cotton
- speed
- Runs fast but cannot climb smooth walls
- fasting
- Survives a year without eating anything
- molting
- Sheds skin its entire adult life
lepisma saccharina — common household silverfish species found worldwide, can live 2-8 years in homes
ctenolepisma longicaudata — firebrat species native to warm regions, thrives in temperatures above 30°c