Dormitory Microfauna - Part 1

It's a commonly held opinion that bugs are gross.

I tend to disagree with this, I think insects are great and interesting subjects for reading, research, or art.

Unless they're in my house.

I'm okay with encountering pretty much any species of insect in the wilds of a garden or forest, but once I find a bug in my house and look at it through the viewfinder of my camera I can't help wondering if the damned thing is going to crawl into my mouth while I'm sleeping. 

I currently live in the main dormitory of a rather large university, and my room seems to suffer from an odd population of pest insects which run around doing their thing (whatever that is, probably eating stuff or wondering where the hell they are) while I work/blog/procrastinate.

I've actually taken to keeping a small checklist of the insect species that I've observed living in my residence. Included below for your reading pleasure. 

Houseflies - √

Silverfish - √

Yeah, that's t it.

Anyways, these two species, as well as being maligned pests, are also kinda nasty when you look at them up close. Or at least that's what I thought.

I'm going to divide this post into two parts, mostly because I've got a test I need to write tomorrow, but also because I like to brag about how many pageviews my blog receives, and brutally bifurcating my posts usually ends up doubling that number.


So, with the introduction complete, here's part one of "Dormitory Microfauna" or, as alternatively titled, "Gross stuff that lives in my room"

Silverfish

Silverfish, also known as Lepisma saccharina, are a common household insect often associated with moist dark areas, like basements and bathrooms.

They're known as sliverfish because they're silver and look a bit like a fish. As a footnote, it bewilders me that, it boggles my mind that someone studying to receive a biology degree can go from such startling terms as "Oxidative Phosphorylation" to "Silverfish". Biologists are weird. 

Craig the dorm room silverfish

My hypothesis as to the startling appearance of a rather large silverfish in my room around midnight on a Thursday is that it somehow traveled from the washroom across the hall, to my room, which is neither moist nor dark, and as such, is an unsuitable habitat for such a mystical creature.

This silverfish was a sketchy one, he showed up on my ceiling near where my fire alarm is, and ran around up there for a while. I contemplated the possibility of catching him and taking a photo but since he wasn't going anywhere, I instead named him Craig and let him run around for a while.

After about an hour of letting Craig explore my ceiling, I decided to move him to the piece of printer paper I had prepared for him on my desk. It turned out that Craig disagreed with this decision, and decided instead to run around for a bit while I questioned my life choices.

Eventually I caught the thing, took a picture, and promptly let him escape.

So now Craig is somewhere on my floor, disguised by the unpleasant tones of the ugly grey carpet that was presumably installed to disguise my dorm's silverfish problem.

Anyways, the picture turned out alright. My camera revealed some lovely iridescence that wasn't originally visible, as well as a tiny little walrus moustache that looks pretty funny.


I'd like to apologize to anyone who thought they would learn anything from this post, it was meant to be completely comedic in nature, and I'm pretty sure I didn't even get that right. Seriously, read the Wikipedia article, it's both more informative, and funnier.