Pill Bugs and Sow Bugs
Contents at a Glance
My Favorite Bug
Summer afternoons and bug circuses.
Pillbugs
Go Dig In The Dirt!
The pill bug is a small, segmented isopod that can curl up in to a ball for protection. These are types of arthropods, or crustaceans, not insects or true bugs.
Pill bugs are commonly found in many areas around the world. They prefer moist soil or rotting vegetation, living in the soil and under decaying leaves, rocks, and dead logs.
A pill bug is born from an egg, looking almost like a tiny adult. As it grows, it molts (sheds its old, outgrown exoskeleton) 4 to 5 times.
Pill Bugs are protected by a hard exoskeleton with three basic divisions, the head, the thorax, and the abdomen. They have 7 pairs of legs.
Pill bugs are omnivorous, eating plants and decayed animals.
Books To Enjoy
A Roly Poly by Any Other Name
Pill Bugs are also known as Wood Lice, Potato Bugs, or Doodlebugs.
Let's Play With BUGS!!!!
New Friends
Kids playing with Pill bugs
Tiny Crustaceans
Armadillidiidae is a family of woodlice, a terrestrial crustacean group in the order Isopoda. Unlike members of the family Porcellionidae, members of this family can roll into a ball, giving them their common name of "pill bug", or the more recent and increasingly popular terms, "doodlebug" or "roly poly" which have been used regionally as early as 1968.
The best known species in the family is Armadillidium vulgare, the common pill bug. These arthropods commonly feed on decaying vegetation and are found under logs, under animal excrement, garbage pails or any other place where moisture can be found. Moisture is essential to pill bugs due to their breathing organs, which are like gills. Although they often thrive in damp areas, pill bugs have often been known to live in dry beds. Their defensive posture is curling up into a ball to present their armored exterior. They are the unique prey of the woodlouse spider and play host to specialized parasitoids in the fly family Rhinophoridae.
Genera include:
*Alloschizidium
*Armadillidium
*Ballodillium
*Cristarmadillidium
*Cyphodillidium
*Echinarmadillidium
*Eleoniscus
*Eluma
*Paxodillidium
*Platanosphaera
*Schizidium
*Trichodillidium
*Troglarmadillidium
*Typhlarmadillidium
Up Close
Looking closer you can see the crustacean traits.
Pill Bug or Pillbug Feeds on Forest L...
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Starring Tuck and Roll
The Pillbugs Stole The Show!
A Bug's Life (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)
Amazon Price: $18.99 (as of 11/11/2009)
Wear A Pill Bug Wherever You Go
If That's Your Thing.......
Sow Bug Size: 14
Amazon Price: $1.35 (as of 11/10/2009)
Links For You To Explore!
Great Stuff For School Reports
Pillbug Feeding on Detritus
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- Pill Bug Fact Sheet
- An informative page from University of Arizona Insect Science Education.
- Pill Bug Printouts
- The Enchanted Learning module on Pill Bugs.
Who Doesn't Love a Pillbug?
Share Your Fond Childhood Memories of Roly Polies!
naturegirl7 wrote...
Neat lens. All the little critters do their job in nature. Welcome to the Naturally Native Squids group. Don't forget to add your lens links to the appropriate plexos and vote for them.
Posted October 26, 2008
Webcodes wrote...
Fun fun lens. 5*. Much better than ants.. these guys won't come to your house and bother you.
Posted October 09, 2008
mulberry wrote...
I did know much about these but I'm certainly familiar with them! Good information.
Posted August 12, 2008
Irenemaria wrote...
Amazing!! Everything is the same here in Sweden. I guess children are the same around the globe ;-D
Posted August 12, 2008
Stazjia wrote...
Here in Britain we call them woodlice as you say on the post it. Great 5* lens.
We used to live in a very old house with a log burner stove and I can remember putting logs on and all the woodlice evacuating and jumping into the hearth. I swept them up with a dustpan and brush and put them in the garden. After that I tried to peel the bark off logs before putting them on the fire.
Posted August 12, 2008
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