Sowbug
A hundred tons of armored devastation! That is what this critter would be if it, well, if it weighed a hundred tons, I guess. This little critter is actually less than 5mm long.
Playing with a sowbugs is a quintessential component of childhood: when you pick them up they roll into a little ball. They have many nicknames, such as pill bugs, potato bugs, and “roly polies”. They belong to order isopoda, which means “balanced foot”, and family Oniscidea, or wood lice.
A few species of Oniscidea may damage garden plants, but by and large they are content to mulch dead leaves in the soil, and are generally considered beneficial–and that’s not counting the cool roly poly factor.
Slowly getting the site back onto an even keel. It's nice to get back into the old posting rhythm.
Athena said,
September 26, 2007 @ 12:02 pm
I think roly polies are my favorite bug.
Thanks for the showcase. heh
Tim said,
October 3, 2007 @ 6:46 am
You mention on the frontpage that insectpod, despite the name, also has pictures of arachnids and even a snail. However, you completely forgot to mention this little crustacean here!
Rhonda said,
October 3, 2007 @ 8:28 am
Can you tell me why my husband and his Utah family INSIST on calling these guys Potato Bugs? I grew up in California, and I’ve always know these were sowbugs/pillbugs/rolypolies, and are definately not the same as the creepy delightful potato bug.
Cheryl said,
October 3, 2007 @ 8:35 am
OMG.
YOU GUYS.
THEY HAVE GILLS! —
http://insects.tamu.edu/fieldguide/cimg377.html
Sarah said,
October 3, 2007 @ 9:25 am
Is this one a true pill bug or a sow bug (pill bugs roll up, sow bugs don’t)?
David Brady said,
October 3, 2007 @ 10:09 am
Tim: Drat! I completely managed to miss that. I researching this one, and when I read through the taxa I completely failed to notice that it does indeed fail to come down through class insecta. Well, at least class malacostraca is under arthropoda.
Sarah: Interesting! I’ve never seen a poly that was non-roly, but since I was not aware of that distinction I’ve never actually looked. This one is definitely the roly kind.
Rhonda: I don’t know; I call them potato bugs, too.
What is the bug you know as a potato bug?
Joe McMahon said,
October 3, 2007 @ 11:35 am
The thing I like about isopods is that they come in giant economy sizes as well.
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/02mexico/logs/oct13/media/isopod.html
Andrew Hailes said,
October 6, 2007 @ 5:00 am
No an insect expert
but that looks like a bug we in the UK call a woodlouse.
Just exposing you to some foreign culture