Talk:Woodlouse

AP Biology

Is there use in a specific AP Biology lab truly important with regard to the insect? More importantly, why is the AP Biology even mentioned? If it does stay, can the use be elaborated upon, perhaps?

There is an animal behavior lab that I did in biology in which the roly-poly was used to study taxis and kinesis in a simple organism. However, I am not sure if it is significant. A sample experiment can be found here: [|http://www.biologycorner.com/worksheets/isopod.html] Hm29168 (talk) 20:40, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Citation needed – terrestial animal

I have found a source of this information – according to Campbell Biology 2017 woodlice are terrestial animals. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeremi zajac (talk • contribs) 11:03, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Common names

I think a very common name for the Woodlouse is the 'roly-poly'. Anyone else heard that name before? Jake (talk) 22:45, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Is this really the most common name for the group? I have never heard woodlouse except as an alternate to sow bug or pill bug, in texts as well as in speech.

I've always called them slaters, but am familiar with the term woodlouse as well; I have never heard of the other two. I guess that the terms vary a lot from one place to another. Tannin

They're only called woodlice in the UK AFAIK -- Tarquin 15:58 May 6, 2003 (UTC)

"Rolly polly" or "roly poly"? In British English, "roly poly" is used to refer to someone who is tubby (whence the term for the woodlouse, perhaps), and "jam roly poly" is a type of dessert, so I suspect this might be the correct spelling. Can anyone confirm? — Paul G 14:50, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Yes, in America too, "roly-poly" refers to a fat man but it also applies to anything that rolls (such as in the song "Roll Them Roly Poly Eyes") so that explains the use of the term for a bug that rolls up into a ball. 66.72.193.129

"Roly-poly", definitely. Yahoo searches don't help much, but I've always seen it with the single "l"s. Deltabeignet 20:36, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC) Update: To Kill A Mockingbird, set in Alabama, spells it "roly-poly". 22:31, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I dont know why but i have always reffered to them as "chucky-pigs"

Do you have a reference for this "linguistics" comment? I've studied linguistics for years and have never heard of it. Also, people here in Arizona seem to use "sow bug" and "pill bug"; I have never heard "woodlouse" or "roly-poly". Jeeves 03:17, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I suspect you associate with recent migrants. I spent around 18 years in Arizona, much of it as a child, and I never heard anything but "roly-poly" from local people. I later decided that I would sound more educated if I followed what I'd seen in books and switched to "sow bug", but I'm not sure it's ever come up in conversation since then. — Pekinensis 15:20, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, "woodlouse" is apparently the official term, and you haven't heard "roly-poly" because, proving the point, you're in the wrong part of the country. I'm posting this from Nashville, Tennessee, where "roly-poly" has complete dominance. I've actually never heard "sow bug" and only rarely heard "pill bug". Deltabeignet 20:36, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

There's no such thing as an "official" term for an animal. Language use develops anarchically. However, it would probably be correct to say that "woodlouse" is the favoured term among English-speaking professional biologists. —Psychonaut 21:53, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That's what I meant. Deltabeignet 22:31, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The part generalizing about where people in different parts of the country call woodlice is not correct. I've never heard a single person call them pillbugs and I've lived in both California and Idaho, so that's not a good generalization for Western states. We just always called them roly-polies.

I'm from CA, and they always use pillbug...

Maybe it's a "Sunshine state" thing. I'm from Los Angeles and have always heard them referred to either as roly-polies or pill bugs. Rarely I've heard them referred to as sow bugs. I came to this article because I was reading some notes to The Metamorphosis and it said one critic thought Gregor was a woodlouse, a term I was not familiar with, and was surprised to find is the same as the pill bugs I am familiar with. Theshibboleth 19:33, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I've lived in Florida, California, and Texas and they've always been referred to as roly polies wherever I go. I actually never knew there were other names for them until I looked them up here.71.240.191.166 10:11, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't live in Reading and I call them cheeselogs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.31.109.191 (talk) 19:51, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

---

I've always been taught the correct term was pillbug, but wood bug is also commonly used around here.

---

I live in Canada, and my friends say, "Here, they're called potato bugs." But I always refer to them as sow bugs. After all, what do they have to do with potatoes? And, by the way, "pill bug" only refers to the species that can roll up into a ball(see Armadillidiidae).Crustaceanguy 22:39, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

We used to call them "Butchers", that is in Cumbria, England. Interesting to see the only other place that uses that name (listed anyway) is Australia! Barcud Coch (talk) 20:50, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

I live in Ontario, Canada and people say 'potato bugs' here. I grew up in Frome, Somerset and we called them granfer gravies there. Zeieg (talk) 17:17, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Woodlice in medicine

I am having difficulty finding information about woodlice being used in old medicine, can anyone help? --J011 22:25, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

Purple woodlice

This color is actually from a viral infection. Iridovirus, specifically. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.239.139.189 (talk) 22:37, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Has anyone heard of blue/purplish woodlice before? We have some in our back yard, but we've never seen them anywhere else. Redge(Talk) 11:46, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Sorry about the fuzzy images, but it was all we could get. Redge(Talk) 12:15, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

File:Bottom view.jpg

Blue slaters are suffering from a parasite, probably an iridovirus. According to Brock Schweitzer's "Porcellio Scaber Behaviour" site, the virus can accumulate in such numbers that it forms a crystalline structure iside the affected tissue causing an intense blue or purple colour (and the beastie is not long for this world when that happens). There's a picture of one at http://www.latrobe.edu.au/genetics/undergrad/GEN32EEG/ You'll also see red porcellio scaber (common rough woodlouse) from time to time and more commonly mottled red/grey or yellow/grey individuals, these are perfectly healthy genetic variations. Armadillidium vulgare (aka pill bug, "butcher boys" in Australia) also varies from dark grey to grey with light-green spots and I've also seen some with pale yellow/green/red stripes at the edges of each plate, like tiny tigers - I don't know if these are unusual a. vulgare or another lot altogether, very uncommon. Lizby 04:31, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps this information should be added to the article? -- Redge(Talk) 09:54, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

I think so, because I've seen blue or purple ones before. Although the site you linked to said it was a bacterial infection. Make sure the facts are right before mentioning it.

This is definitely worth mentioning, I have seen one of these before. I kept it as a pet in fact. I was only about 7 years old, but I remember it being a very bright color of blue. I always figured it had somehow gotten stained blue by exposure to a dye or some other chemical. It's very interesting to finally know the cause.

that's an undergrad genetics course site not from a virology/bacteriology dept! they got it wrong. have a look at [1] or just google iridovirus Lizby 11:25, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Another photo taken on 6 Aug 2014 The Netherlands. (Maybe worth mentioning: they lived near a plant with purple flowers, did the animal obtain pigments from the flowers? If so, why didn't the others?)

If interested, Wikipedia has an article for this now: Invertebrate iridescent virus 31. Ypna (talk) 02:37, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Color preference?

This may not be important enough to include, and it isn't enough evidence as it is, but I found in an experiment in my biology class that pill bugs have a preferrence for color: they spent almost 70% of their time in a red chamber instead of the blue one (there were 20 trials). Another group saw a strong correlation of them preferring yellow over red. I realize how horribly informal these experiments were, but I found the results interesting, and wondered if any true experiments have been done on this.

Cheesy Bug?

Has anyone ever heard of woodlice being called Cheesy Bugs?

Yes i have heard of it. Everyone knows that woodlice are called cheesy bugs - From a credible source

My Dad who lived in England, Wales, and Cyprus, used to call them Cheesy Bugs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.56.73.82 (talk) 21:12, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I often think I coined the term, though it may have been convergent evolution ;p It's based on the colour of their insides when torn apart. Yes, kids can be exceedingly unpleasant when it comes to bugs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.6.161.163 (talk) 02:24, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Names

A few of the names mentioned for pill bugs in the article have little to no use outside of the article. I googled all the terms, and these are the results. Only one other website outside Wikipedia and its mirrors mentions a "daddy gampfer". "Daddy gramfer" is perhaps a corruption of daddy gampfer (if either terms are really used at all) and yields no results outside Wikipedia. A search for "butcher boy" with "crustacean" did not yield any relevant results in the first couple pages, though perhaps a more thorough scouring of the search results would find relevant hits. Doodlebug yielded the second greatest number of results though most were irrelevant, many referring to the antlion. Slater yielded the most number of results though almost all were irrelevant. A search for "slater" and "crustacean" yielded 11,000,000 results. Of the others, "roly-poly" was the most common with 500,000 resuts. Woodlouse, pill bug, sow bug, and potato bug each yielded results in the tens of thousands. "Chuggy pig" yielded only 59 results and the rest (armadillo bug, ball bug, roley-poley) yield about 1000 to 2000 results. In light of this, I think the article should be renamed roley-poley, and I'm going to rearrange the names. Theshibboleth 09:34, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

My great-great-aunt from Wiltshire (born 1903) used to call them 'grey gramfers' (gramfer = grandfather), nothing else. I grew up in the Midlands where they were known as pollywogs. Just because it's not on Google doesn't mean it doesn't exist!. 86.156.172.150 19:05, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

'Daddy gramfer' was the name I used growing up, in a village in NE somerset, early 1980s. As far as I know it is only used in a tiny geographical area - the children in the next village over called them 'grampy grovers'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.26.64.106 (talk) 11:50, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Ever come across "wood pig" for them. I know Google is no use on the matter.GraemeLeggett 09:33, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Another name used around Oakhill in Somerset. granfer gravy

Please do not consider moving the article to "roly-poly" or anywhere else for that matter. "Woodlouse" is by far the most authoritative and widespread name. As a Briton, I'd have no idea what a "roly-poly" was supposed to be (a kind of pudding, isn't it?). Woodlouse is unambiguous and ubiquitous. The only other place the article could be would be "Oniscidea". And, to prevent the whole article becoming a list of dialectical variations, I've moved the common names to a separate section. --Stemonitis 08:45, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Moving the article will probably upset more people than it pleases. -- Ec5618 12:41, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I also agree, my AP bio book also uses the term woodlice, roly-poly is not the best sounding name and it is mostly used in america. 68.79.167.113 04:14, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

As an American I have never used the term "Woodlouse". Lice in the woods? Sounds disgusting! "Woodlouse" may be the name used the most in England but it is not the most widespread name in the entire English speaking world. In Ohio the most common name seems to be "potato bug". "Sow bug" is also used. "Roly-Poly" sounds like a name a child would call it. I saw that name used in a Big Boy comic book in the 1970's. I think "pill bug" would be the most appropriate here since it's used in the US and UK. 66.72.193.129

I'm flabbergasted to come to this article and not find the name 'peabug'. I'm from SE England. Any more votes for the inclusion of this term? Apart from 'woodlouse', I'd never heard any other name used. Jigsawpuzzleman 14:41, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

If you can find a decent citation for its use, then it can be included. For some reason, people love adding their own terminology to this article, and there's no way of knowing how many of them are only used by a few individuals, or indeed are entirely made up, so I've decided to insist on some kind of reference for any purported common name. --Stemonitis 14:58, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. References are thin on the ground but, after a quick 'n' lazy Google search, it would seem that it's a regional kentish name judging from this. And this page opens a whole new can of names. In any case I'm glad to discover I didn't make it up! Jigsawpuzzleman 18:15, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Lots of people seem not to have heard of the name woodlouse. It is the most common name in my opinion. I don't use it myself but I have always known that the real name for what I and my family have always called a parsel's pig (no idea why) is woodlouse. As someone above said, a roly-poly is a type of dessert! The name of this article is correct even if it's not the first name I'd use to describe the bastardly creatures. Why choose a rarely used name (like pill bug) which is used in the UK and US when we can use the original name woodlouse which is used by far more people or recognized by many people even if it's only used in the US. The US does not rule the world - thank fuck! (don't take offence at my use of the word fuck. As a non-religious person, I'd much rather say thank fuck than thank God)--ЗAНИA ^{talk WB talk}] 21:38, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

How do you get rid of woodlouse from your attick bedroom

they are utterly ditestable creatures and i have a real problem with them, does anybody know how to kill them??? Dan waz eya 05@hotmail.co.uk 20:15, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

stomping them works —Preceding unsigned comment added by 154.5.132.51 (talk • contribs) 03:20, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

why would you want to kill them? they don' eat your food, they don't go in your bed, they don't destroy your home, all they do is exist... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dio23 (talk • contribs) 15:08, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

The humane way to is to get rid of all excess moister (they need it to breathe) keep cutting back on moister until they are gone, and they also do one other then exist, they eat leafs and grass.76.183.213.20 00:39, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, woodlice make great meals boiled and served in a butter garlic cream. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.6.161.163 (talk) 02:26, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I think they're cute little things. Always find them in my compost heap and feeding on piles of weeds. Never cause any problems though, they don't eat the fruits and vegetables in my garden like snails do, or come into the house like a cockroach. They just stay outside and do their own thing. I'm remember using them for experiments in school regarding Kinesis. They are actually an amazing example of Kinesis behaviour. Spacemonkeynz (talk) 00:35, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Common names and citing sources

As noted by User:Theshibboleth above, many of the names listed here are not found anywhere else, and even if they're not vandalism, we're laying ourselves open to it by allowing this absurd list of slang to continue expanding. I suggest that from now on, only "common names" with a cited source be accepted, and that that source must not be simply another list of different names for woodlice (of which there are many on the web, most of them making use of this article, I should think). I have tried to find references for as many of the names as possible, and have removed any for which no good reference could be found. I have also taken out the geographical information, where no citation corroborated it. "Potato bug" looks like it might be used for woodlice somewhere, but I couldn't find a source; all the sites I found used the term to refer to the Jerusalem cricket. --Stemonitis 08:57, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Addendum: I have just stumbled across the results of a Harvard dialect survey [2], showing a variety of terms used in the US for woodlice (possibly just Armadillidium, judging from the description). I have resisted adding all the answers given by less than about 2% of respondents (e.g. "basketball bug"), because 2% of respondents call them "centipedes" and 1% "millipedes". This is clearly at the limit of folk taxonomy, so I can't be sure from that evidence alone that a "basketball bug" is not something else that is often confused with a woodlouse. Of course, if there are further sources somewhere, then that's another thing. --Stemonitis 15:05, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

"butcher boy" is common and well understood in Australia, means more to us than stuff like cheesy logs no matter what Harvard says. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.214.89.198 (talk • contribs)

If that is so (and I've no reason to doubt it), then it shouldn't be too difficult to find a reference to back the statement up. I can't find any website that uses it, except ones which evidently copied our old list. --Stemonitis 10:47, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

In Australia I've never heard any names other than "slater" and "butcher boy" which seemed to be equally common when I was growing up in Melbourne a few decades ago. — Hippietrail (talk) 14:01, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I live in Melbourne, Australia and we have the ones that curl up into a ball. Ive only ever heard the name "Slater". 121.44.203.223 (talk) 06:45, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I've lived in Reading (UK), in Newbury (a town about 15 miles away from Reading) and now live in a village outside Reading. I've been to most of the towns in Berkshire. I've never once heard the term 'cheeselog' before reading this article. Note that the reference is to someone researching accents and making an off-hand comment to the affect that he came across the term used to refer to woodlice - but he gives no indication whether this was meant to be common or maybe a one-off used by a tiny number of people. I think it should be removed. Conversely, every child I know (now, and when I was a child) just called them 'piggies' - but this is not listed under common names. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.156.125.60 (talk) 09:14, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Gills

I have read that although woodlice breathe air (except for Ligia oceanica probably), their gills have to be moist in order to keep operating. Can a woodlouse drown when put under water?--Crustaceanguy 01:36, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes. They are terrestrial, air breathing organisms. We, too, must keep our gas exchange surfaces moist, but our lungs are kept damp by themselves. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.6.161.163 (talk) 02:29, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Although, when I feed them to my newts they can happily walk around at the bottom of my pond for a long time. They do not appear to struggle underwater but merely walk around. Until they get eaten, that is.

size

Does anybody know how big these guys get?RWgirl 20:42, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

The largest woodlouse is Ligia oceanica, it may reach 3 cm in length. --Crustaceanguy(t/co/cw) 00:58, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia, ironically, the Ligia oceanica is not a woodlouse. Although it is closely related. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.31.109.191 (talk) 19:53, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

French wiki

The "Woodlice in Fiction" section has a link to "La métamorphose des cloportes". However, that's a French movie, almost unknown in the English-speaking world, and unlikely to ever have a Wikipedia article for it. So, it seems in the interest of not having a perminent broken link, three things could be done. First, simply remove the links, and leave it as a word. Second, link it to IMDB. Or third, link to the French Wikipedia, which has an article about it at http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_M%C3%A9tamorphose_des_cloportes. Whatever's descided about what to do with it, I could easily do the first two, but I've never linked to another version of Wikipedia, and I'm not sure how to do it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kvn8907 (talk • contribs) 22:05, 22 March 2007 (UTC).

Cross-wiki links are easy enough — you just have to remember to add a colon at the beginning. So, to link to the French article, you type [[:fr:La métamorphose des cloportes]]. I think any of your three options would be acceptable. --Stemonitis 08:37, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Didn't really work. I tried that, but it made the sentence read "* In [[:fr:La métamorphose des cloportes]] movie woodlice (cloportes) are a part of the title, and shots of woodlice appear during the opening credits." Kevin 19:14, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you need to use a piped link at the same time. I probably should have said so. --Stemonitis 09:34, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Pictures

I changed the gallery a bit, to get the most species I now have added the picture of P. scaber and O. asellus together. First I removed the picture of unrolled A. vulgare (it's a bit vague when enlarged), but Stemonitis disagreed with that. I think the current is the best solution (having max. 4 pics, otherwise layout is a bit messed-up on 1280x1024 and 1024x768).

The current setup is much better. I had no idea we had a picture with two species on it. Only showing Armadillidium rolled up gives little clue as to how it looks (and how different it looks) when unrolled, so I think it makes sense to keep that in. A better-focussed image would be nice, but in the interim, the one that's there will have to do. Maybe I should go grubbing around with my camera in some leaf litter later today… --Stemonitis 12:30, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Evolution

I see this article suggests that pillbugs and pill millipedes are an example of parallel evolution, i wonder if this has been coppied incorrectly from the pill millipede article, which states that the defensive rolling ability may have evolved separately in each of the two pill millipede orders. Pill bugs and pill millipedes probably share a common ancestor at some point but then just about everything would if you went back far enough. Wouldn't convergent be more accurate? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.6.85.54 (talk) 15:10, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree.92.8.227.136 (talk) 09:13, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

clumsy

They seem like clumnsy creatures, they fall over often when my cats walk by them or theres a sudden gush of wind, and they have great difficulty in rolling back up why cant they get up? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.199.31.1 (talk) 17:16, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

legs

How many legs does a woodlouse have? Currently Terrestrial locomotion#Number of legs claims they have 14. But crustacean seems to imply they are decapods with 10 legs. This woodlouse article should state the true number. --68.0.124.33 (talk) 14:41, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

14 is correct. Not all crustaceans are decapods, in fact, Decapod is just one of a great many orders of crustaceans. Remember, Crustacea is a whole Subphylum! Woodlice belong to the order Isopoda. This information is already available on the appropriate Wiki pages, including this one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.6.161.163 (talk) 02:34, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

What happened to Buddelundiellidae?

After the taxonomic list was converted from superfamilies to sections, the family Buddelundiellidae went missing from the list. In the original classification, this family was in the superfamily Trichoniscoidea, which also included Trichoniscidae. Does this mean that Buddelundiellidae would be in the same section as Trichoniscidae?--Crustaceanguy (talk) 13:22, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Add Redirect

Wood_lice -> Woodlouse

Do they damage wood or not?

The main article states:

"They are not generally regarded as a serious household pest as they do not spread disease and do not damage wood or structures"

at the end of the "Ecology" section, but it is immediately followed by a section entitled, "Wood and Timber Damage" which begins with,

"The woodlouse buries itself into damp rotten wood and eats away at it often resulting in extensive damage to the interior of wood."

Having grown up with woodlice (yes, that is the proper name) I have never been aware of any wood damage by them. Could this have been added by Rentokil to strum up business in the recession? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.30.186.250 (talk) 12:04, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

They seem to be a symptom of damage (particularly damp) rather than a cause. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.6.161.163 (talk) 02:35, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

A bit like socialists like wealth, but they don't cause it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.14.112.203 (talk) 14:25, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Wood lice only eat decaying wood, not fresh/treated wood. They are common around here (referred to as 'woodbugs') in rotting logs and will not damage structures unless it is already suffering from severe rot, especially when caused by moisture exposure.ExoditeTyr (talk) 19:20, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

37 spp in UK? 3-30mm?

"There are 37 native or naturalised species in the United Kingdom, ranging in colour and in size (3–30 mm)"

What source is this from? I've got conflicting info from a published paper; Paoletti, M.G. & Hassal, M., 1999. Woodlice (Isopoda: Oniscidea): their potential for assessing sustainability and use as bioindicators. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment, 74, pp. 157-165.

Here it states there are 42 species in "Great Britain" of which 13 are considered non-native and introduced by man, and they range in size from 1.2-30mm (so not far off from the article). I would edit this page myself, but i'm neither an expert nor capable of using wikipedia (so forgive me if this is the incorrect way of doing these things). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.103.103.158 (talk) 21:27, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

And who really cares how many species are extant in the UK, as opposed to other regions? Weird section, was tempted to simply delete. Huw Powell (talk) 03:50, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Are there really woodlice as big as 30mm in the UK? If true, this would be interesting - I've never seen one bigger than about half (maybe a bit less) that size, anywhere in the UK. Is there a larger species somewhere in the UK, perhaps in a limited geographical area? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.156.125.60 (talk) 09:23, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Ligia oceanica can reach that size, and is common around the British coastline. --Stemonitis (talk) 09:30, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Hmm. The article for Ligia oceanica says that it is *not* a woodlouse - though is closely related. Is is (semi-)aquatic? The article kind of implies this by referring to rock pools but doesn't otherwise make it clear. (What I mean is, if I was at the beach, would I look for them *in* water pools or maybe under rocks and in crevices out of water?) 81.156.125.60 (talk) 09:39, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Not any more. Thanks for pointing that out. If you go to the shore, look on and under rocks above the waterline. --Stemonitis (talk) 09:45, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Breathing underwater

Since woodlice have gills, can terrestrial woodlice (such as the common woodlouse) breath underwater? --The High Fin Sperm Whale (talk) 00:29, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

See the answer given earlier under the heading Gills. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 14:14, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Non-Evolution

Woodlice have not evolved for millions of years. The same 3,000 species were still in existence at the time of the dinosaurs.

The first sentence is factually impossible according to accepted biological thinking. Even if the "same 3,000 species" figure in the second sentence were correct, each of those 3,000 species would have been continuously evolving, first due to the Red Queen hypothesis as the species struggle against their co-evolving diseases and parasites, and second due to genetic drift from neutral mutations.

This section appears to have been created to promote a Creationist or similar view, by stating a controversial view as decided fact and thus quite likely violating WP:NPOV. It also fails to cite sources, even Creationist ones, and thus violates WP:V quite clearly and rather egregiously. As such, I've stricken the section in question.

89.100.143.141, if you wish to re-add these or similar statements to the article, you will need to cite verifiable sources, particularly prominent and notable ones (WP:WEIGHT), and otherwise obey Wikipedia's community guidelines.

-- Chronos Tachyon (talk) 08:10, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

As Food

are this bugs edible? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.162.143.26 (talk) 02:14, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

By the spiders in my shed they are. Beyond that I wouldn't want to find out! 86.133.53.44 (talk) 10:22, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes.

IceDragon64 (talk) 22:42, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

They are an edible food source and taste a bit like shrimp when cooked over a camp fire. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.19.203.3 (talk) 15:17, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Diet/food

The article appears to lack any reference to the woodlouse's diet. Somebody with the requisite knowledge ought to remedy that fault. J. D. Crutchfield | Talk 00:04, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

answer

they eat dead plant matter. indeed this is an amazing omission. I do not feel competent to fill it up.

From the article: "They are usually nocturnal and are detritivores, feeding mostly on dead plant matter. they have also been known to feed on cultivated plants, such as ripening strawberries and tender seedlings." What more do you think need so be included? Mark Marathon (talk) 06:58, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

American woodlice?

The article implies that all the woodlice in the Americas came from Europe, imported by humans. Trichorhina tomentosa, though, is described on the List of UK Woodlouse species Page as the only american species imported FROM the americas to Europe ? Which is true? The ref link is broken, but my guess is that it will show evidence that the common European species have gone to the Americas, not that there were no american ones before.

IceDragon64 (talk) 22:46, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 July 2017

Please mention that Wood lice are not lice. People could get confused. 198.24.30.126 (talk) 21:27, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Where specifically do you want it to go? Morphdog^{what did I do now?} 02:03, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Issues

There are a few statements in this article that don’t seem to make any sense.

“A woodlouse is a terrestrial isopod crustacean” … “A few woodlice have returned to water.” So which is it, are they terrestrial, or are they aquatic and terrestrial?

“Living in a terrestrial environment, woodlice breathe through trachea-like lungs in their paddle-shaped hind legs (pleopods), called pleopodal lungs.” So how do the aquatic species breathe?

“Females are also capable of reproducing asexually.” The reference suggests that only one species can do this.

“Pill millipedes can be distinguished from woodlice on the basis of having two pairs of legs per body segment instead of one pair like all isopods. Pill millipedes have twelve to thirteen body segments and about eighteen pairs of legs, whereas woodlice have eleven segments and only seven pairs of legs.” What? 2 pairs of legs/segment X 12 segments = 24 pairs of legs. Not 18. 1 pair of legs per segment x 11 segements = 11 pairs of legs. Not 7.

[Addressing just the preceding paragraph] Why do you assume that every segment has legs? ". . . having two pairs of legs per body segment . . ." means that if a segment has legs, it has two pairs, not that all segments have (two pairs of) legs. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.211.131.202 (talk) 15:11, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

“pill millipedes …resemble normal millipedes in overall colouring and the shape of the segments.” What exactly is the normal colour and shape of a millipede? Just taking a look at the taxobox picture in the millipede article, the shape ranges from flattened with “wings” to stringlike to spiky. Which of the shapes is a pill millipede? Colour ranges from bright red with black stripes to ghostly white. Which of these colours is a pill millipede?

“one species, Hemilepistus reaumuri, inhabits "the driest habitat conquered by any species of crustacean". OK, so only one species doesn’t live in damp, dark places, such as under rocks and logs? I know that is incorrect. And what is the “driest habitat conquered by any species of crustacean” Is it sunny field in Ireland? The Atacama desert? The Antarctic highlands? A fire pit?Mark Marathon (talk) 23:55, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

[Addressing just the last paragraph] Anyone else wondering this would likely click the wikilinked name and read the article on that species. Alternatively, you could yourself copy the relevant information (". . . in and around the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East.") and reference from that article to this one. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.211.131.202 (talk) 15:16, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Rewrite 2018

Created a Workpage here: Talk:Woodlouse/Rewrite_2018
The intended structure should be obvious, please flesh out any of the bullet points or sections if you can, the references I intend to use are already in place but most are paywalled, use Sci-hub and Libgen.
Add any references that may be useful to the References Dump section. Any comments or queries go here I guess.
This my first time doing this so supervision of more experienced editors is probably needed... Edit-pi (talk) 01:11, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

ERROR: „Dysdera crocata feeds exclusively on woodlice.“

Is contrary to it’s main page and disproven by laboratory experiments. Akalovid (talk) 10:20, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

 Fixed, thanks Akalovid. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 12:10, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Unsourced "common names"

Time to zap 'em, each and every one. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 03:53, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

I'll start removing each of the unsourced names this week. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 14:28, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

collective term a quabble of woodlice seems more than suspect: it is sourced from two places in wiktionary one of which says "many of these terms are humorous and appear only in word lists" and the other "Don't trust this list; many of these entries are fanciful" and appears nowhere else as far as I can see .. ~~ jw (talk) 15:50, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

There is this 2020 article by the BBC that blurbles about almost 250 different common names for this creature, though the data used was soaked up from a survey conducted by Dr Warren Maguire et al. Do-Droppy (talk) 13:16, 2 March 2023 (UTC)