Silverfish are occasional invaders in Texas homes and businesses. While they do not pose any immediate danger to you or your home, they can become a nuisance and can damage personal belongings. If you have silverfish in or around your home, it's time to include them in your Corpus Christi pest control plan. For help with this process, don't hesitate to call on the experts at EnviroGuard.
Where Do Silverfish Get Their Name?
It only takes seeing one of these pests to understand where they got their name. Silverfish are silver to brown with elongated teardrop-shaped bodies. They grow to be about 3/4 of an inch in length and have six legs and a unique metallic sheen that resembles fish scales.
However, silverfish coloring is only half of the resemblance these insects share with the aquatic world. Silverfish move at lightning speed, but rather than run or scuttle as most bugs do, they wriggle their way across floors and countertops like fish moving through the water.
What Do Silverfish Do For The Ecosystem?
The benefits of these insects depend a lot on the silverfish habitat. Inside your home, these insects will eat anything with protein, sugar, or starch. This includes newspapers, books, wallpaper, fabric, pantry foods, and dead insects. Indoors, silverfish are more of a nuisance, damaging belongings and contaminating food.
However, in their natural habitat outside, silverfish are important decomposers. In this role, they play a critical part in helping the flow of energy move through the ecosystem. Silverfish and other decomposers break apart dead organisms and break them down into simple inorganic materials that are used as nutrients for growing plants.
Habits And Behavior Of Silverfish In Corpus Christi
Silverfish are common throughout the United States, and it's likely that you have seen a silverfish in a humid area of your home, such as a bathroom, basement, or attic. While they can survive for weeks without food or water, these insects need high humidity of 70 to 90%. Because they are such good climbers, silverfish often enter homes through shake roofs and move down through the insulation into homes.
Some other silverfish facts include that these insects often infest commercial structures such as offices, stores, and libraries, they can be accidentally transferred from one location to another inside cardboard boxes, and once they find a good food source, they will remain close by, breading within wall voids, under the subfloor, or inside attics. Silverfish lay one to three eggs per day and live for up to three years, so once you have a few in your home, the population is sure to increase.
What Can I Do To Remove The Silverfish From My Home?
Silverfish are nuisance pests that can damage your belongings. If you have silverfish in your Corpus Christi house, you'll want to look into silverfish pest control near you. These bugs can be challenging to find and eradicate in your home, but the professionals at EnviroGuard can offer silverfish treatments that are safe for you and your family while still being effective against silverfish.
EnviroGuard is a local company with a number one goal of keeping you and your family safe and healthy and your property free of pests year-round. We offer attentive, friendly, and effective service for homes and businesses in Corpus Christi and the surrounding areas. You can count on us for affordable prices, prompt turnaround times, and local knowledge of area pests. Call today to request a free quote and to learn more about our customized residential and commercial pest control services in Corpus Christi and our long-term prevention plans.