Thread: silverfish
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Old 04-04-2005, 04:38 AM
paghat
 
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In article , Stephen
Henning wrote:

(paghat) wrote:

Silverfish eat paper that is already damp & decaying, not otherwise.


Silverfish love newspaper in our basement. The basement is damp in the
summer, but the paper doesn't decay on its own. We have a dehumidifier
in the basement. They seem to keep nibbling at the edges until big
sections are missing.

One trick that helps is to moisten a newspaper (so that it was damp but
not soaking) roll up the newspaper and tie it with an elastic. Do this
at night and the next morning slowly open up the newspaper (it should be
full of silverfish) next either burn the newspaper or empty into a
garbage can outside the house. Do this every night until the newspaper
no longer has any silverfish in it.

Actually the common term silverfish includes:
Silverfish - Lepisma saccharina L.
Four-Lined Silverfish - Ctenolepisma quadriseriata
Long-Tailed or Gray Silverfish - Ctenolepisma longicaudata Esch.
Firebrat - Thermobia domestica

According to the Ohio State University, silverfish and firebrats eat:
glue, wallpaper paste, bookbindings, paper, photographs, starch in
clothing, cotton, linen, rayon fabrics, wheat flour, cereals, dried
meats, leather and even dead insects.


William Lyon simply has that wrong. I see the claim that they eat paper
made time & again but not by anyone who has actual direct experience as a
paper archivist. When stated CORRECTLY the most that will be claimed is
silverfish eat "paper surfaces" (because they eat the sizing off
photographic papers or drygum off of wallpapers, but not the paper
itself).

I have dealt in antique ephemera & rare books for thirty years, & have an
extensive antiquarian book stock right now if you'd like to buy something
old & rare & truly interesting. I have helped restore book collections
after flooding & after poor storage caused them to be damaged by damp or
insects. I have never seen a book nor even a pulp magazine in which the
PAPER was damaged by silverfish. So I maintain there are no silverfish
eating your newsprint as you misdiagnosed. If it were insects at all, it
could be lots & lots of varieties, including cockroaches, but the presence
of silverfish doesn't mean they eat newsprint because they don't.

What you describe doesn't even sound like insect damage; what appears to
be edge-eaten newsprint is caused by oxygen in contact with the acidic
bonding agents in cheap paper, which react to oxygen and/or ultra violet
light, "brittling" the edges of the paper so that it chips away
irregularly or turns to dust. People frequently believe insects or mice
did it, but it is a natural decay process for pulp paper. This doesn't
happen with acid-neutral papers but only with pulp papers that used acid
bonding agents, & the center of the pages are less apt to be damaged
because they are not in contact with oxygen or ultraviolet the way the
edges of a stack of papers or a bound pulp magazine would be.

The RARE instances when silverfish eat paper is when the paper is wet &
partially decayed (because they eat the starch byproducts of mold & mildew
growing on paper); heavily foxed (because they eat the starch byproduct in
the foxing microorganisms); or when paper is heavily contaminated with
dextrose or starch or has been coated with paper sizing (which is pure
starch but is not ordinarily used on book papers, but is on photographic
paper or artists' paper) or which is moldy & already ruined.

It is similarly falsely claimed that "booklice" (psocids) eat paper, but
all they eat are the starch in bindings or the byproducts of any mold or
fungi that has already attacked books. If they ever ate a "hole" in a page
it would be the same way a silverfish might do it, by eating the starchy
spot caused by fungal "foxing" inside books, & rarely even that since it
is antique glues they are after foremost.

I've done a LOT of practical & applied research on archiving books &
paper; I have personally handled thousands upon thousands of books the
glue of which had been entirely eaten away by silverfish, & never seen
even moderate evidence of their having eaten the paper per se. Papers &
books properly stored in low humidity & low-end room temperatures,
silverfish are not a problem, but many libraries & books get stored in
seasonally hot humid basements, & the older books with starchy glues will
attract booklice & silverfish. Their search for starch in vintage books
can be extremely harmful & cause entire bindings to fall apart, & weaken
binding cloth by eating the sizing agent (starch) or eating the inked
letters & designs out of cloth embossures without harming the cloth. The
paper of such ruined books is generally perfectly all right & can be
rebound, unless also afflicted with foxing or fungus. The worst I've seen
silverfish do is when paintings & ephemera with unusual ink mixtures or
paints get eaten off the surface of the paper, but of the paper itself not
a nibble.

That comes direct from an archivist & antiquarian bookseller with decades
of experience. William Lyon knows a great deal about insects & has knocked
off a couple hundred of these "Bug FAQ" sheets assisted by students. He
knows nothing about paper, paper preservation, or the specific problems
insects present to archivsts.

-paggers
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