ON THE WILD SIDE Pest is history
ROE deer are done with their autumn rut and will now be easier to see, as they group up and feed together out in the open. The males will be losing their antlers around now.
HOW can something that eats tiling grout be older than the dinosaurs? What did it eat before that?
Well, I might be getting ahead of myself a little here. Today we’re talking about a visitor to our houses.
Though less common these days, you may still catch sight of them occasionally inside your home.
They are up to an
Nearly every home in the UK is likely to have housed a silverfish at some time.
Outside the home they are denizens of moist leaf litter and need between 75% and 95% humidity in the air to thrive. Bad news for anyone who lives in rainy Wales or Scotland.
They should be fairly easy to recognise, with long antennae, shiny
grey-silver bodies and a motion that looks like a wiggling, flailing fish.
They get shinier and more silvery as they get older. They only come out at night, so you are only likely to uncover them when moving furniture. Their main inch long, cower at the sight of the sun, and are likely to gnaw on your favourite novel.
Let me introduce the bristletail family or, as you may know them, the silverfish.
predators are spiders and earwigs, but they can usually outrun them. Bristletails are among our most ancient insects and have remained practically unchanged for 400million years. To put that into perspective, the dinosaurs didn’t exist until 100m years later.
They have eyes, unlike many other members of their order, and are also among the largest wingless insects in the world.
They are among the few insects who continue to shed their skins into adulthood and can moult up to 30 times a year. Silverfish usually lay fewer than 100 eggs in a two to eight-year lifetime, but can drop anywhere from a few to 50 in one bundle. A silverfish mating ritual involves a series of elaborate dances that last for 90 minutes.
There is another lesser-known family called firebrats. These used to live around hearths and in hot places. Today you will find them mostly in bakeries and warm industrial food preparation areas. They can lay 6,000 eggs over their five-year lifespan. Silverfish are a major pest yet carry no diseases and don’t bite or sting. It’s their diet that’s the problem.
They can go a year without meals but eat sugars and starches in items such as grout, carpets and wallpaper paste. They can also get into containers, spoiling food with their dirty feet.
I BOUGHT myself a Christmas tree today. The guy asked if I was going to put it up myself. I said, “No, in my living room”.
A CHEESE factory blew up in France .... Da Brie is all over.
LOOKING back, I wish I’d bought my beans online...but then again, Heinz site can be a wonderful thing.