Lubbock (1869) was the first person to record Seira domestica from 'Millbank and Brixton prisons' (the former is the current site of Tate Britain). It has since been found in a small number of scattered localities, always in buildings. I found the specimen in the photo (Fig. 1) in an isolated farmhouse in Southole near Hartland in Devon in September 2001. Other confirmed localities are 'Hampstead, indoors' and 'water dish, Natural History Museum'!). Seira domestica is covered in rounded scales (Fig. 2), has a long claw on the foot (Fig. 3), and possesses a highly distinctive mucro with a single tooth, and a strongly crenulated dens (Fig. 4).
     The records suggest that the species has a southerly bias. Bagnall would surely have found Seira domestica had it occurred in northern England.

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Fig. 1 (above): Seira domestica (2.8 mm in length) collected from a house in Devon in September 2001.

Fig. 2 (above): Scales on the body of Seira domestica collected from 'the surface of a water dish' in the Natural History Museum London in January 1984 by 'APZ' (identity of collector not certain).

Fig. 3 (above): Foot of the third leg of the same specimen of Seira domestica shown in Fig. 1. There is a prominent spatulate tenant seta in the position marked * but it is out of the plane of focus.

Fig. 4 (above): Mucro and dens of the same specimen of Seira domestica shown in Fig. 1.