Roly Poly Fun!

Photo of a pillbug by Joe Buckingham at photographicdictionary.com

This morning I was trying to get some cleaning done which included picking up tiny legos on the floor before they got sucked up in the vaccuum never to be seen again!  Then I noticed a small dark thing on the floor that wasn't a lego at all.  It was a roly poly, which my 3 year old and I then preceded to play with for a few minutes.  I decided to learn more about them, and here are some of the interesting facts I learned:

Roly Polies, also called pill bugs and potato bugs, are in the Armadillidiidae family of woodlice.  Despite the names we call them, they are not bugs at all.  They are crustaceans, more closely related to shrimp than insects.  Like their sea cousins, they use gills to breathe.  Although they need moist environments to breathe, they cannot survive being fully submerged in water. 

Pill bugs roll themselves into a ball through a process called conglobation.  This little trick is where most of it's names come from.  This rolling action is a key defense against predators and may be triggered by stimuli like vibrations or pressure.  I barely touched our roly poly friend and he curled right up.  As he unrolled, he was lying on his back, and my little boy said, "Ew, it's legs are spikey!"  After seeing the little legs wiggle in the air my son was ready to move on to the next fun thing that did not involve "bugs." 

Pill bugs are decomposers.  They digest material from dead plants and animals and waste products (including their own-yes, they eat their own poop) and return essential nutrients back into the soil.  They are often found in decaying organic matter and in gardens.

Like a kangaroo, a mother pill bug carries her young in a pouch under her belly.

Pill bugs can contract viral infections causing them to look bright blue or purple.

Because of hemocyanin in the blood which contains copper ions, their blood appears blue.

photo from wikipedia.org

photo from wikipedia.org