National Insect Week returns in 2022
(Thermobia domestica)
Silverfish & firebrats
© Peter Barnard
Firebrat
Firebrats have flattened bodies of around 12mm in length; they are covered in scales and are brown coloured with dark mottled patches. They have long antennae and biting jaws.
Firebrats live in warm dry habitats, in urban areas they will live in bakeries and heating ducts, but are no risk to humans. Their flattened bodies enable them to hide in crevices.
Firebrats are present all year round in buildings.
Eggs of the Firebrat take up to two weeks to hatch, nymphs moult several times and mature at two to three months. Adults continue to moult through their lifetime and can live for three to five years. Males and females mate only if they are within three or four moulting cycles of each other, they have complex courtship behaviours involving antennal shaking and leg brushing. The male then produces a sac of sperm, which the female takes into her body to fertilise her eggs. Eggs are laid in groups of fifty or sixty at temperatures of 30-40 degrees Celcius, females can lay up to 6000 eggs during her lifetime.
Firebrats are scavengers, eating starchy material such as flour.
Firebrats and Silverfish have symbiont bacteria communities living in their guts, which help digest the starchy material that they eat.
Firebrats are all over Britain.
The longest recorded insect is Chan's megastick, a stick insect species from Borneo which can be up to 56.6cm long.
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