| Size: |
Silverfish and bristletail adults are about 1/2-3/4 in (12-19 mm) long, not including tails. Bristletails and silverfish are wingless, with flattened bodies tapered from head to rear, covered with scales. |
| Color: |
Silvery to gun metal colored, one species with dark lines along length of body. |
| Characteristics: |
They have 3 long bristle type appendages on the end. Antennae are long, threadlike. Compound eyes are small, widely separated. Silverfish, 1/2 in (12-13 mm), fourlined silverfish, 5/8 in (16 mm) and gray silverfish, 3/4 in (19 mm) are representative species found in the U.S., including southern California. |
| Geographic Range: |
Throughout the United States and the world. |
| Food: |
Depends on species, but all can survive for weeks without food or water. They roam to search for food, but stay close to it once they find it. Silverfish (Lepisma saccharina) prefer protein to carbohydrates, are cannibalistic, and pests of paper. Gray silverfish feed on wheat flour and beef extract, especially in wallpaper paste, preferring papers with high chemical pulp content, such as cellophane, tissue, onion skin (instead of newsprint, cardboard, brown wrapping paper ); they also eat linen, rayon, cotton (not wools or natural silk). Fourlined silverfish, not so limited by temperature and moisture, live and feed indoors and outdoors, can digest cellulose, are sometimes found in attics near wooden shingle roofs, or under bark of Eucalyptus trees in California. |
| Biology: |
Varies with the different species. Eggs are laid in cracks. Nymphs molt a number of times. Silverfish and bristletails breed in a variety of places, in almost any room of the house, as well as in commercial structures. Some species can digest cellulose. |
