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Armadillidium (/ ɑːr m ə d ɪ ˈ l ɪ d i ə m /) is a genus of the small terrestrial crustacean known as the woodlouse. Armadillidium are also commonly known as pill woodlice, leg pebbles, pill bugs, roly-poly, or potato bugs, and are often confused with pill millipedes such as Glomeris marginata.
Pill bugs in the family Armadillidiidae are able to form their bodies into a ball shape, in a process known as conglobation. Conglobation has evolved independently in several families; this behaviour is shared with pill millipedes (which are often confused with pill bugs), [ 8 ] armadillos , cuckoo wasps , and some extinct trilobites . [ 9 ]
Armadillidium maculatum, also known as the zebra isopod or zebra pillbug is an Armadillidium species of woodlouse, named for its black and white patterns. It is native to southern France. [ 1 ] It is quite popular as pets or vivarium cleaners, due to their ability to break down various waste.
Additionally, pill bugs have a thorax consisting of 7 body segments, 5 abdominal segments, and a pleotelson, while Glomeris millipedes lack a visually defined thorax and have 12 body segments total. While the uropods of pillbugs are relatively quite small, flipping a pill bug over will reveal the small uropod overlapping the pleotelson. [40]
Armadillidium vulgare, the common pill-bug, potato bug, common pill woodlouse, roly-poly, slater, doodle bug, or carpenter, is a widespread European species of woodlouse. It is the most extensively investigated terrestrial isopod species. [ 2 ]
Like members of the woodlice family Armadillidiidae, armadillids are capable of enrolling into a sphere (conglobation), and are commonly known as pill bugs. [4] [5] Some species, however, have secondarily lost their conglobation ability. For example, a species exist in which the males lack the inner face of the coxal plates and are therefore ...
The giant isopods are noted for their resemblance to the much smaller common woodlouse (pill bug), to which they are related. [3] French zoologist Alphonse Milne-Edwards was the first [4] to describe the genus in 1879 [5] after his colleague Alexander Agassiz collected a juvenile male B. giganteus from the Gulf of Mexico.
Armadillidium album, also known as the beach pill woodlouse, is a species of isopod within the family Armadillidiidae. [1] The species is salt tolerant, [2] inhabiting coastal sand dunes and saltmarshes within Europe. They can sometimes be found under driftwood or burrowed within grains of sand of which their colour pattern mimics. [3]