Earlier today I had found a spider hanging in a web which appeared dead; it didn't move, even when I shook the trap. Now, you might be wondering how a spider could be in a web in a trap. Some opportunistic spiders actually build webs on the sides of the traps. What struck me as peculiar was that the dead spider is about 10 times bigger than the owner of the web. Nothing so far is baffling. Somehow, a spider was subdued by a much smaller spider.

What's baffling is that when I got home from work, the dead spider was gone. The most logical event to transpire would be for gravity to eventually win and place the spider in the glue. It didn't seem likely that someone would break into my condo just to take a dead spider, so I took a closer look. It had been moved to the other side of the trap! That is truly baffling. I don't what species either spider is, but they don't look similar at all. I don't think they are male and female of the same species, either. This is because the female tends to use the male for food. All this is going on in a dark corner so I used a flashlight and discovered quite a web surrounding the trap as well. I'm impressed and decided to let the little spider live. If he (or she) is taking out large spiders, then that's fine by me. I just wish I could've seen how it moved the large spider to a different part of the web.

It's possible it was playing dead and, as you turned to leave, it jumped on to you and hooked its fangs in and now it's controlling your every move, including that post which was designed to further cloud this spider conspiracy.

Jodo, you might just be the most remarkable person I know.

I wonder if all those spiders are attracted to that big sexy brain of yours...

Verily so. I wondered why I spent several hours outside looking for crickets.

It can only get better, if only some millipedes and centipedes would start running around in here. I did see a silverfish once - it was fast. The way I killed it was most memorable and I would like to claim it was skill, but it was the luckiest precision timing ever. I was sitting on my chair reading a book and I saw something dart from behind my bookcase to my computer desk. It was damnably fast but I could still tell it was a silverfish, having seen them before. I saw it under some wires and grabbed a napkin, for pulverizing its body. I held my hand high, slightly away from the wires. I jiggled the wires and brought my other hand down. In order to get a determined silverfish, you have to strike where you think it will be. And that's what I did. I spent a long time wondering about its reason for scurrying so quickly. I noticed that while they are on white walls, which are fairly close to the color of their bodies, they causally walk about in plain view, no doubt feeling confident nothing can see them easily. But my floor is brown and that may incite silverfish into a state of panic because they know they are exposed. Thus, scurrying is recommended. Ever since the brown recluses stopped being reclusive, I haven't seen a single silverfish. I would dare say that a brown recluse can probably catch a silverfish. Their bursts of speed are similarly remarkable.

I doubt it's sexy to them. I mean, there aren't any legs attached to my head. I only have two eyes, laughably small substitutes for fangs, and I have disgusting eating habits. I chew my food.

Silverfish and I are no strangers to each other.  I hate the little buggers; used to get 'em in my room at my parents' place.  Of course, they'd generally only come out late at night - 2am was about their witching hour, and they were frequent enough that I knew to keep the necessary swatting weapons on hand should one brazenly peek out from the creases around the window near my computer desk.  Still, every time I saw one, I freaked the frack out. 

It's their speed that's alarming, but I'd say I became agile and practiced enough to get them maybe ninety percent of the time.  Failure usually elicited a shriek of obscenity from me, and feeling uneasy that I let one get away to allow it to skulk freely throughout the night.  Course, there were probably skads of unseen ones running around in my walls..... of which I simply didn't want to think about.

They sure squish good though, don't they?  Looks just like a smear of my Sunlight Silver Mazda 3 touch-up paint.

It always reminded me of silver spray paint. Here is an excerpt from Evolution of the Insects, which is a must buy for any admirers of arthropods.

Though they are not capable of jumping, silverfish are very agile and run swiftly, as anyone who has chased one across a kitchen counter or sink knows.

  Silverfish, or zygentoma, stem from the earliest insects. This is why they can't jump or fly. Their speed, along with their omnivorous diet, is probably what has allowed them to survive the past 400 million years. I suppose this is a case of bradytely, or morphological stasis. Bradytely is when an organism remains relatively the same for millions of years. If you look at a diagram of insect phylogeny, you'll notice that the silverfish are a straight shot from the beginning, much unlike the other insects. I guess this means their body plan is a very successful one. Not many organisms have had a 400 million year run.