Silverfish: Not Just a Pest in Minecraft

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In the very popular sandbox game known as Minecraft, there are hostile mobs known as silverfish. They infest stone blocks and will attack the player if said stone block was mined. In real life, silverfish are known to be pests that are just as annoying and can cause some major damage when it goes unnoticed. 



Silverfish, Lespisma sacchrina, are wingless insects and are included in the Zygentoma order along with the firebrat, Thermobia domestica, and almost 550 other species. The name Zygentoma comes from the Greek word “zygon”, which means “yoke” or “bridge”, and the Greek word “entoma”, which means “insects”. Originally, this group was named this way because it was thought that the Zygentoma order was the sort of missing link between the Apterygota, the insects without wings, and the Pterygota, the insects with wings. However, this is no longer the idea amongst entomologists. 

Just like the mob in Minecraft, Silverfish are called “silverfish” because of their silver color and the fact that they are shaped like and move around like a fish. All silverfish have three thin and long appendages at the end of their body that look like tails. They also tend to be very small with the smallest silverfish being, not including the tail-like appendages, a half of an inch and the biggest silverfish being three-fourths of an inch. Like any other insect, the silverfish also have six legs and antennae. However, unlike any other insects, silverfish do not have wings and are, therefore, unable to fly. To make up for this lack of flight, silverfish are known to be able to run very fast, especially when a light turns on. Not only are they fast, but they are also very good climbers. Silverfish prefer to live in cool temperatures, which could be from 70 or 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and damp and/or dark environments. Usually, a silverfish is able to live up to two years and could molt up to fifty times throughout those two years. Silverfish are ametabolous, which means that instead of going through an obvious metamorphosis, they are just gradually growing in size as they grow older. The female silverfish lays between one to three eggs a day, but each egg takes about three or four months to develop with favorable conditions.



Most people are able to recognize silverfish as a cause for concern. This is because of the fact that they have been known to infest houses or any other building. Silverfish are able to infest any building so easily because of their size, speed, and environmental preferences. For example, they are nocturnal, so during the day they are able to hide in crevices, but then come out at night. This allows them to go unnoticed for a long time. While they go unnoticed in your home or in libraries, they will eat the paper in books, the clothes in your closets, or even get into the food in your pantry. The silverfish's eggs are very small, which allows the eggs to be hidden very well by either placing them in cracks, under different objects, or can just be left out in the open because of how small they are. Besides the obvious destruction to objects, silverfish are not harmful to humans since they do not bite and do not spread diseases.

The most effective methods in reducing a silverfish infestation include changing the conditions that allowed the insect to be there in the first place. This includes removing moisture, tightly sealing food containers, and making it a little bit colder. 







Works Cited

Silverfish and Firebrat. Plant & Pest Diagnostics. (n.d.). https://www.canr.msu.edu/resources/silverfish-and-firebrat 

Silverfish. Pest World. (n.d.). https://www.pestworld.org/pest-guide/occasional-invaders/silverfish/

Silverfishes (Order Zygentoma). iNaturalist. (n.d.). https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/48301-Zygentoma


Pictures

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/84/LepismaSaccharina.jpg/1200pxLepismaSaccharina.jpg

https://centralpestcontrol.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/silverfish-1.jpg 


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