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Kim McCain, ape 11, of Effingham, South Carolina, for her question

Where do silverfish come from?

The whiskery little silverfish always seems to be in a great hurry. You hardly catch a glimpse of him as he scuttles to his safe corner in the kitchen. He is, of course, rated as a household pest. The silverfish we catch in the kitchen hatched from an egg hidden in some secret crack in the walls or floor. He descended from insect ancestors that shared the world with the dinosaurs.

He is called a silverfish because his skinny little body is covered with powdery scales that rub off when you touch him. Obviously he is not a fish because he lives on land, preferably in the walls behind somebody's kitchen or bathroom. His three pairs of legs, plus several other features, qualify him as a member of the vast tribe of insects. Scientists classify him as a primitive insect because no member of his family has win. s. Also, he does not progress through the complicated changes called metamorphosis.

His life begins as a tiny egg, which his mother hides in a secret dark crevice  ¬perhaps in the walls or under the floor of a house. When he hatches, his first project is a search for food    and the search for food will occupy most of his time through the rest of his life. However, his hunting is limited to after dark because the silverfish cannot abide any kind of light.

When he hatches he is a miniature copy of his parents, almost too small to be seen. As he grows, his scaly skin becomes too tight. Meantime a new skin grows underneath and, when all is ready, the old skin splits apart. He crawls out and enjoys the comfort of a new larger skin  for a while. As he prows bigger, the second and then a third skin have to be replaced. Experts suspect that he continues to grow all his life. Even as an adult, now and again he molts into a new skin.

His favorite menu is mainly starchy food, with maybe a helping of glue for dessert. He bites into cake crumbs, crusts of bread, scraps of cereal and any other starchy leftovers he can find in the kitchen. Sometimes the little wretch attacks the glue that holds a chair together. He also feasts on the slue that binds pages into a book.

If you want to catch him in the act, wait until the house is dark and quiet. Then tiptoe into the kitchen and switch on the light. There he goes in a whirl of whiskers, scuttling toward the dark security of his secret hideaway,.. When fully grown, he  measures about an inch, including his long hairy antennas and the tuft of whiskers on his tail.

Many of his kinfolk never invade human homes. They live under the bark of tree trunks and in other dark hideaways out in the wilds. Their family tree dates back at least 25O million years    which was ages before humans arrived and invented houses. Ancestral silverfish shared the ancient coal forests with the dinosaurs. No doubt they learned to scoot out of sight because some of the small dinosaurs were small lizards that spent their time hunting for insect meat.

 

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