Speaker 1: Hey, there, everybody, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh,
Speaker 1: and there's shocking it's Jerry's here. She's just kind of
Speaker 1: lingering quietly in the background. And this is short stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean there's hiss went away, and that means Jerry's gone.
Speaker 1: That's right. When she was on, it was hissy and
Speaker 1: now it's not hissy. She speaks like a cobra commander.
Speaker 1: I don't know what that means. Do from g I Joe.
Speaker 1: If you watch the cover, watch had kind of before
Speaker 1: his talk, you know, have you ever seen a silverfish?
Speaker 1: That's my line? Oh sorry, Chuck, I thought we were
Speaker 1: mixing it up. Chuck, have you ever seen a silverfish?
Speaker 1: I don't know what his silver fish is? Yes, you do?
Speaker 1: You lie? Is it from g I Joe? That's right,
Speaker 1: he was cobra Commander's right here man, silverfish. It's actually
Speaker 1: kind of no. I have seen I have seen silverfish,
Speaker 1: and they I think a lot of people get freaked
Speaker 1: out by silverfish and I don't, And I don't know
Speaker 1: if I should. Well, I know I shouldn't, but I
Speaker 1: don't know why people do. I guess I think just
Speaker 1: because they're weird looking, they're very prehistoric looking, which makes
Speaker 1: sense because apparently they've been around since the Devonian period
Speaker 1: for four million years, and they haven't really changed much
Speaker 1: since then. So I think that it probably is triggers
Speaker 1: some innate, primal part of our evolved brain, that is
Speaker 1: that that came from whatever those ancient silver fish used
Speaker 1: to eat, you know what I'm saying. Sure, I do
Speaker 1: know that they've remained pretty unchanged, largely because they haven't
Speaker 1: really had to. I mean, I guess they were perfect
Speaker 1: little beings. Um, And they're very hardy. I think they
Speaker 1: can live six months with just water or just food.
Speaker 1: I think as long as they have one of those two,
Speaker 1: they're doing fine. Yeah, yeah, which is pretty interesting. But
Speaker 1: I mean that's a long time to go without either one.
Speaker 1: But it's a long time for an insect. A list
Speaker 1: it is. Um. Yeah, and I didn't see how long
Speaker 1: they live for in general, but they do seem fairly hardy.
Speaker 1: But to kind of circle back to what you were
Speaker 1: saying initially, if you know whether or not people should
Speaker 1: be scared of them, you shouldn't. They're actually not at
Speaker 1: all harmful to people, and the worst they can do
Speaker 1: is maybe, um degrade some of your old books, eat
Speaker 1: some of your favorite startch callers. Nothing really terribly untoward.
Speaker 1: And they also, um don't really tend to break out
Speaker 1: in infestations. And if they do, you've had silverfish a
Speaker 1: long long time. If you've noticed that, you have a
Speaker 1: silver fish infestation, because they reproduce very very slowly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think I've ever seen more than
Speaker 1: one same here in a place. They're like lone wolves.
Speaker 1: You know, I guess an infestation might creep me out
Speaker 1: a little bit. But um, you did mention books, and
Speaker 1: that that's because back in the day books, well there
Speaker 1: are still books, like we just wrote one and are
Speaker 1: selling a book, but it is not put together with
Speaker 1: glues that use animal byproducts. We made darn sure of that, right.
Speaker 1: Actually we didn't have to because that's just the old
Speaker 1: way of putting books together. And the silver fish eat
Speaker 1: these things, not because oh I love to eat books
Speaker 1: or even like the paper. It's it's really kind of
Speaker 1: the starchy, sugary glues and animal proteins used to put
Speaker 1: this stuff together, right exactly, So there s o l
Speaker 1: with new books. But you know the problem is if
Speaker 1: you have an antique book collection, it's probably worth some
Speaker 1: money in the silverfish love that stuff. But for those
Speaker 1: of us who don't collect antique books like we said,
Speaker 1: you know, um, they love starch that you would say,
Speaker 1: spray on like a caller, and they can inadvertently ruin
Speaker 1: your clothes, Like they don't set out to ruin your clothes,
Speaker 1: but them just kind of sucking on and chewing up
Speaker 1: that starch can can harm the fibers as it stands. Um,
Speaker 1: we should just leave bowls of mashed potatoes in the attic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as an offering party, in offering to the silverfish gods,
Speaker 1: should we take a break? Be sure? All right, well
Speaker 1: let's take a break and we'll describe these things, because
Speaker 1: we're going to start describing things and we'll be right back.
Speaker 1: So chuck. Yeah, that was ah that that dude wrote
Speaker 1: in to say, hey, um, not all of us can
Speaker 1: go on the internet and look at pictures of what
Speaker 1: you're talking about, so please do describe it. That's why
Speaker 1: you were referencing. Sure, do you want to talk about
Speaker 1: what a silverfish looks like? You're they're skinny, Uh, they're pointy.
Speaker 1: Uh in the abdomen region, they got a little round head.
Speaker 1: Some people say they look like little carrots that that
Speaker 1: mate it with the fish because they have these little
Speaker 1: silvery tiny gray scales and they kind of shimmer and
Speaker 1: they kind of wiggle like a fish swimming, and I
Speaker 1: think that's where they got their name. Plus also if
Speaker 1: you look at their tails, they have those like three
Speaker 1: little kind of pointy appendage. I guess is that what
Speaker 1: they are. They're not. They look they look stingy, but
Speaker 1: they're not. But I don't know if they could sting
Speaker 1: other things that aren't humans, I don't know. But yeah,
Speaker 1: they definitely don't sting or bite or anything like that.
Speaker 1: And they don't want to be anywhere near you. So again,
Speaker 1: you don't need to to be worried about them. But
Speaker 1: if you, if you kind of use your imagination and
Speaker 1: just kind of connect those three stingers and fill it
Speaker 1: in a little bit, it looks a lot like a
Speaker 1: fish's tail. Yeah, you know, all the more reason to
Speaker 1: call them silverfish, and all the more reason to fry
Speaker 1: them up with somehow puppies and tartar sauce and have
Speaker 1: mushy peas. Maybe if you're from England, yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: I have a little party. So um, you're going to
Speaker 1: find silver fish in places like we said that have
Speaker 1: a high starch content, but also very humid places and
Speaker 1: at a certain temperature. They apparently prefer high humidity like
Speaker 1: between um and then temperatures of around seventy eight degrees
Speaker 1: fairre at heights, so they kind of like it a
Speaker 1: little tropical, you know what I mean? Yeah, like in
Speaker 1: the summertime in your basement or crawl space, you might
Speaker 1: see them. Um, I think the things that freaked me
Speaker 1: out of those I don't know what they are. They're
Speaker 1: not crickets, but they are cricket, like in the ones
Speaker 1: that jump in very unpredictable directions. Spiders, No, there, crickets
Speaker 1: sort of that they but they leap up in the
Speaker 1: air and you never know which way they're gonna go,
Speaker 1: Like usually cricket will just leap forward like in a grasshopper,
Speaker 1: like they're trying to go somewhere. These things are just
Speaker 1: a little unhinged, right, So, um yeah, I read a
Speaker 1: really good description of how silver fish move. They move
Speaker 1: really really fast and then stop and just kind of
Speaker 1: hang out for a little bit, and then they move
Speaker 1: again really really fast, and it's almost like this, um weird,
Speaker 1: kind of disjointed movement from one place to the other.
Speaker 1: But again, usually when they're moving and they see you,
Speaker 1: they're trying to get away from you. They're not coming
Speaker 1: at you. Yeah, and you know, their reproduction cycle is
Speaker 1: pretty long, so you're probably not gonna see infestations. Um.
Speaker 1: I think if you do have them, they say, you're
Speaker 1: probably you probably have too much junk lane around or
Speaker 1: maybe you've got a bunch of storage and cardboard boxes,
Speaker 1: which is not a good for many reasons, not a
Speaker 1: good way to store things. And uh, they definitely suggest
Speaker 1: that you store things in plastic bins. Um now that
Speaker 1: we have these sort of modern things available to us
Speaker 1: with lids, and it's a lot harder for I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just a better way to store things, period. And
Speaker 1: one reason I also saw why it is hard to uh,
Speaker 1: why it is hard to end up with a silverfish
Speaker 1: infestation is because, like you were saying, it's a long
Speaker 1: reproductive um time. But also silverfish um. Female silverfish only
Speaker 1: lay about a hundred eggs over the course of their lifetime,
Speaker 1: which seems really low, um as far as insect eggs go,
Speaker 1: don't you think it seems like it? And I guess
Speaker 1: they only lay about three or six at a time,
Speaker 1: and it takes about three to six weeks for them
Speaker 1: to hatch. So if you see a silverfish, you probably
Speaker 1: don't have much to worry about. But if you do
Speaker 1: want to get rid of them, chuck, what do you do?
Speaker 1: I mean, surely you have to like tape up your
Speaker 1: house and like go get a fogger and like get
Speaker 1: all the furniture out, and then it's a real problem, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know me, I tend to just leave
Speaker 1: them alone. But they do say that you can just
Speaker 1: vacuum them up and get ready or clutter reduce the
Speaker 1: humidity if you can. Um But I say, don't really
Speaker 1: sweat it so much because there's probably not many of them.
Speaker 1: And if you do have a real infestation, you can
Speaker 1: call a professional, right, But I mean, but I don't
Speaker 1: recommend it. If you don't have a like an antique
Speaker 1: um book collection at steak, then yeah, maybe just coexists,
Speaker 1: right yeah. And if you're storing your antique collection in
Speaker 1: a cardboard box in your Carls stage, then you don't
Speaker 1: care about it exactly. You got anything else about silverfish?
Speaker 1: Nothing else? Leave him alone, everybody? Uh? And since I
Speaker 1: said leave him alone, I guess that means that this
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