The Wild & Creepy Tenants - The Long-Legged Slyboots & The Silver Gourmand

This is a series about our little and creepy tenants that are born, live, and then die in our basements, attics, garages, and even bathrooms. Every day, they do their best trying not to stick out, while our house has become their true kingdom, and it seems that they are not planning to leave it voluntarily.

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The Long-Legged Slyboots

You can walk very far if you have long legs and the Harvestmen (Opiliones) know it very well - this arthropod's legs can be 20-40 times longer than it's body. But this has disadvantages: predators can easily catch them by their stilt-like legs.

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However, the opiliones have worked out an elaborated strategy to deal with the enemies. The harvestman's leg that gets stuck in aggressor's mouth is simply ejected from the body. The detached leg continues to twitch for about a minute (some for up to an hour!), because the 'pacemakers' are situated within the leg not in the body.
The opiliones are often confused with the spiders but they are completely different order of arachnid. As opposed to the spiders, their body is not segmented but it is a one solid structure.

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The Silver Glutton

The Silverfish (Lepisma saccharina) is an exceptional insect, and that's because of the mechanism protecting it against the loss of water through evaporation. It can survive for few weeks completely without water and for up to a year without food (if water is available). They are big gluttons who feed on polysaccharides which can be found in clothing, coffee, books, carpets, dandruff and, of course sugar. That's why they are regarded as pests.

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The silverfish is covered with about 40 thousand silvery scales and each one of them is attached to the special "sensor". Thanks to this fact, it is many times more sensitive to touch than human finger tip. The insects can live for up to 8 years, unless they fall victim to their natural enemy - The Common Earwig.
The silverfish's life can also be cut short by a chemical attack from humans, which happens quite often, because they enjoy living in our bathrooms.

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-logic

If you have enjoyed my article, please check up the previous episodes in this series:

"The Wild & Creepy Tenants - The Master of Survival & The Unstable Aviator".

"The Wild & Creepy Tenants - The Biting Strongman & The Little Technician [Every Day Is Halloween]".