Hi there, everybody, and welcome to the short stuff, I'm Josh and there's shock and it's Jeri's, he or she just kind of lingering quietly in the background and this is short stuff.

And there's the hiss went away. Yeah. And that means Jerry's gone. It's right. When she was on, it was Hisey and now it's not his. He speaks like a Cobra commander.

I don't know what that means. Know do from GIGO, if you watch the car, watch your head.

I kind of think about this before Hisey talk, you know, have you ever seen a silverfish?

That's my line. Oh, sorry. I thought we were mixing it up now. Chuck.

Mm hmm. Have you ever seen a silverfish? I don't know what silver silverfish is.

Yes, you do. You lie. Is it from Jojo? That's right.

He was a Cobra commander's right hand man silverfish.

It's actually kind of no, I have seen I have seen silverfish. And they I think a lot of people get freaked out by silverfish. And I don't and I don't know if I should. I know I shouldn't, but I don't know why people do.

I guess I think just because they're weird looking, they're very prehistoric looking, which makes sense because apparently they've been around since the Devonian period for 400 million years and they haven't really changed much since then. So I think it probably is triggers some innate primal part of our evolved brain that is that that came from whatever those ancient silverfish used to eat. You know what I'm saying?

Sure. I do know that they've remained pretty unchanged, largely because they haven't really had to there. I mean, I guess they were perfect little beings and they're very hardy. I think they can live six months with just water or just food. I think as long as they have one of those two, they're doing fine.

Yeah, yeah. Which is pretty interesting. But I mean, that's a long time to go without either one. But I that's a long time for an insect to live. It is, yeah. I didn't see how long they lived for in general, but they do seem fairly hardy. But to kind of circle back to what you were saying initially, if you know whether or not people should be scared of them, you shouldn't. They're actually not at all harmful to people.

And the worst they can do is maybe degrade some of your old books, eat some of your favorite starch collars, nothing really terribly untoward. And they also don't really tend to break out in infestations. And if they do, you've had silverfish a long, long time. If you've noticed that you have a silverfish infestation because they reproduce very, very slowly.

Yeah. I mean, I don't think I've ever seen more than one theme here in a place. Yeah, they're like lone wolves, you know.

I guess an infestation might creep me out a little bit. But you did mention books and that's because back in the day books, well, there are still books like we just wrote one and are selling a book. It's true, but it is not put together with glues that use animal byproducts. We made darn sure that. Right. Actually, we didn't have to because that's just the old way of putting books together and the silverfish eat these things, not because I love to eat books or even like the paper.

It's it's really kind of the starchy sugary glues and animal proteins used to put the stuff together. Right, exactly.

So they're SFL with new books. But, you know, the problem is if you have an antique book collection, it's probably worth some money in the silverfish. Love that stuff. But for those of us who don't collect antique books, like we said, you know, they love starch that you would say spray on like a caller and they can inadvertently ruin your clothes like they don't set out to ruin your clothes. But them just kind of sucking on and chewing up that starch can can harm the fibers as it stands.

We should just leave bowls of mashed potatoes in the attic. Yeah. As an offering of a party.

An offering to the silverfish.

Guys, should we take a break? Be sure. All right.

Well, let's take a break and we'll describe these things because we're going to start describing things in twenty twenty one. Oh, nice. And we'll be right back. I'm Alec Baldwin. Listen to my podcast, here's the thing I heart radio, it's my chance to talk with artists, policy makers and performers like the actress Kristen Bell.

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Oh, so Chuck, yeah, that was a that that dude wrote in to say, hey, not all of us can go on the Internet and look at pictures of what you're talking about. So please do describe it. That's what you were referencing.

Sure. You want to talk about what a silverfish looks like? They're skinny. Yep. They're pointy in the abdomen region. They got little Roundhead. Some people say they look like little carrots that that mated with the fish because they have these little silvery tiny gray scales and they kind of shimmer and they kind of wiggle like a fish swimming. And I think that's where they got their name.

Plus also, if you look at their tails, they have those like three little kind of pointy appendage stingers, I guess.

Is that what they are? They they're not they look they look stinging, but they're not.

But I don't know if they could sting other things that aren't humans. I don't know. But yeah, they definitely don't sting or bite or anything like that, and they don't want to be anywhere near you. So again, you don't need to be worried about them. But if you if you kind of use your imagination and just kind of connect those three stingers and fill it in a little bit, it looks a lot like a fish's tail.

Yeah. You know, all the more reason to call them silver silverfish and all the more reason to fry them up with some hushpuppies and tartar sauce, delicious and mushy peas.

Maybe if you're from England. Yeah, I guess I have a little party. Yeah.

So you're going to find silver fish in places, like we said, that have a high starch content, but also very humid places and at a certain temperature they apparently prefer high humidity, like between 75 percent and 95 percent and then temperatures of around 70 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

So they kind of like it a little tropical, you know what I mean?

Yeah, like in the summertime in your basement or crawlspace, you might see them. I think the things that freak me out of those I don't know what they are. They're not crickets, but they are cricket like in the ones that jump in very unpredictable directions. Wolf spiders. No, they're crickets sort of like that. But they leap up in the air and you never know which way they're going to go. Like usually your cricket will just leap forward, like in a grasshopper, like they're trying to go somewhere.

These things are just a little unhinged.

So, yeah, I read a really good description of how silverfish move.

They move really, really fast and then stop and just kind of hang out for a little bit and then they move again really, really fast. And it's almost like this weird kind of disjointed movement from one place to the other. But again, usually when they're moving in, they see you. They're trying to get away from you. They're not coming at you.

Yeah. And, you know, their reproduction cycle is pretty long. So you're probably not going to see infestations. Right? I think if you do have them, they say you're probably you probably have too much junk laying around or maybe you've got a bunch of storage and cardboard boxes, which is not good for many reasons, not a good way to store things. And they definitely suggest that you store things in plastic bins now that we have these sort of modern things available to us with lids.

And it's a lot harder for I mean, it's just a better way to store things, period.

Yeah. One reason I also saw why it is hard to see why it is hard to end up with a silverfish infestation is because like you were saying, that's a long reproductive time, but also silverfish female silverfish only lay about one hundred eggs over the course of their lifetime, which seems a really low as far as insect eggs go, don't you think. It seems like it, yeah, and I guess they only lay about three or six at a time and it takes about three to six weeks for them to hatch.

So if you see a silverfish, you probably don't have much to worry about. But if you do want to get rid of them, Chuck, what do you do? I mean, surely you have to, like, tape up your house and, like, go get a fogger and like, get all the furniture out and then it's a real problem right now.

I mean, you know me, I tend to just leave them alone. But they do say that you can just vacuum them up, get rid of your clutter, reduce the humidity if you can. But I say don't really sweat it so much because there's probably not many of them. And if you do have a real infestation, you can call a professional. Right.

But I mean. Yeah, but I don't recommend it. If you don't have a like an antique book collection at stake, then yeah. Maybe just coexist, right?

Yeah. And if you're storing your antique collection in a cardboard box in your crawlspace, then you don't care about it. Right, exactly. You got anything else about silverfish? Nothing else. Leave them alone, everybody. And since I said leave them alone, I guess that means that the short stuff is out. Stuff you should know is a production of radios HowStuffWorks for more podcasts, My Heart Radio, is it the radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows?