Nutrition

                                                                              

 

 The silver fish feed on many objects located in every household.  Their main source of food, is any paper base product or containing wall paper paste.  Since they can reproduce so rapidly, silverfish can be very damaging to any book or picture collection in your home.  That is the main reason Silverfish are labeled as a household pest. (Cox, 2012) They can digest many other products in your home as well including; silk, cardboard, glue, cotton, sugar, dried meat, and oats.  They're ability to digest glue allows them to chew through the adhesive between wallpaper and the wall itself.  They are able to easily digest these fabrics with a type of enzyme that they secrete in their digestive system, that helps eat away at all the cellulose located in their diet.  

     The silver fish can also go long periods of time without consuming any type of food source.  In a study to see how long this insect could go without vegetation, a sample of Silverfish were not given food until they finally starved. The last adult silverfish to die, out of 20 adults, lived for 307 days. (Lindsay, 1940)  This is very impressive just for the fact that they can go almost a year without eating, but also if you consider that their life span is only 2-8 years. (Cox, 2012)  That means that they can live nearly half their life without food!