Relict Silverfish

Tricholepidion gertschi · Order: Zygentoma · Family: Lepidotrichidae

No source yet on danger. We have no source yet on whether it bites, stings or damages anything.
Relict Silverfish
Photo: Michael Eisen, CC BY

Adults are between 7 and 18 mm long and have a reddish-brown body.

Source: Wikipedia

How to recognize it

Each compound eye contains about 40 ommatidia and the insect has three simple eyes (ocelli). The body lacks any scales.

Source: Wikipedia

Size

Individuals measure from 7 mm up to 18 mm in length.

Source: Wikipedia

Where it lives

It inhabits the space under dead bark and in decaying wood of conifers within mesophytic forests.

Source: Wikipedia

Where it is found in the US

Recorded in 1 of 51 states and DC. Most records: California.

Darker = more records. Counts are museum and citizen-science records, not population size.

Source: GBIF

Months it is reported in the US

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Source: GBIF

More photos

Relict Silverfish photo 3
Photo: Michael Eisen, CC BY

Sources

  • Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricholepidion

Look it up elsewhere: GBIF · iNaturalist · BugGuide · ITIS · Wikipedia

Text written 2026-10-23 from the sources above and checked sentence by sentence against them. Data fetched 2026-10-23.

How this page works

This is one bug's fact sheet. The colored box at the top says whether it is dangerous. Sections below cover how to recognize it, whether it is a pest, and how to deal with it. The US map shows which states have records; tap a state to see other bugs there.

Every fact on Bug FAQ comes from a named source (university extension sites, government agencies, GBIF, iNaturalist, Wikipedia). The source is linked next to each section. If we have no source for something, we leave it out.