Common Pill Woodlouse

The Common Pill Woodlouse rolls into a ball when threatened, using the armoured plates of its exoskeleton for protection.

Species introduction

At a glance
Latin name: 
Armadiilidium vulgare
Family: 
Woodlice
Family Latin name: 
ARMADILLIDIIDAE
Category: 
Invertebrates
Vernacular names: 

billy baker, monkey pea, grammer zow, parson's pig, chiggy wig, cheese log, daddy granfer, granny grunter, damper, slate cutter, hardy back, penny sow, cheesy bug, nut bug 

(There's a fascinating article about the vernacular names of woodlice on Dr Tamsin Baxter's website at https://www.icge.co.uk/?p=woodlice.)

Species description

Species description

This sociable dark grey woodlouse rolls into a ball when disturbed.  Their armoured plates narrow at the tail end.

Species photographs

Larger photograph(s) (click to magnify)

Details

Species family information

This native European family is known as the pill bugs, and they share the characteristic of being able to roll into a ball when threatened, using the armoured plates of their exoskeleton for protection.

Category information

Centipedes, millipedes, and their kin are collectively called myriapods. Centipedes are carnivores, and have one pair of jointed legs per body segment, which never have 100 segments, but vary from 30 to 354. Millipedes have two pairs of jointed legs per body segment, up to 333 in number, and mostly feed on decaying plant material. Myriapods are arthropods and share a common ancestor with the crustacea, that includes insects, which in turn share a common ancestor with the arachnids. Arthropods have an exoskeleton, a segmented body, and paired, jointed appendages. They have highly developed sense organs. 84% of all species on the Earth are arthropods. Crustacea generally have two pairs of appendages (antennules and antennae) in front of the mouth and paired appendages near the mouth that function as jaws. They occupy a wide range of habitats, and many are aquatic, although the largest group in terms of number of species, the insects, are mainly terrestrial. Woodlice are common crustaceans in gardens.

Earthworms are annelids, evolving on a separate lineage to the arthropods, but they share a common ancestor with the molluscs. The Annelida is a large group of segmented worms, also called ring worms. Molluscs are a large, diverse group of invertebrates, which have unsegmented bodies enclosed within calcareous shells, and are represented in gardens mainly by terrestrial gastropods such as snails and slugs. Other molluscs, particularly the bivalves and cephalopods, are aquatic. Representatives of all these groups are found in the cemetery.