Talk:Woodlouse

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Arthropods, a collaborative effort to improve and expand Wikipedia's coverage of arthropods. If you would like to participate, visit the project page where you can join the project and/or contribute to discussion.
B This article has been rated as B-class on the quality scale.
High This article has been rated as High-importance on the importance scale.

Article Grading:
The article has been rated for quality and/or importance but has no comments yet. If appropriate, please review the article and then leave comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article and what work it will need.

Contents

[edit] 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?

[edit] Common names

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'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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] Purple woodlice

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)

Image:Top view.jpg Image: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)

[edit] 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.

[edit] Cheesy Bug?

Has anyone ever heard of woodlice being called Cheesy Bugs?

Yes i have heard of it. Everyone knows that woodlive 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)

[edit] 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)
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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)


[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)