Tell me quirks of woodlice
asks: I’d love to know more about the woodlouse. Any quirky fun facts?
Woodlice live alongside us so we have many amazing names for them across human cultures without perhaps knowing a huge amount about them. (I speak for myself!)
There are actually more than 5,000 species of woodlouse but the one we know in Britain best is Oniscus asellus, which can curl up in a ball. Another common woodlouse species, the common rough woodlouse, Porcellio scaber, which is more widely found in the US and Australia, doesn’t.
Woodlice are found on all continents apart from Antarctica. They are a land-dwelling crustacean, so more closely related to crabs than insects.
We know they’ve been around since the very first animals but they will probably be around far into the future too, because they are very resistant to toxins and pollutants. No matter how much we trash the planet, there will probably be a “chucky pig” cleaning up our mess in a million years time.
Patrick is live
Patrick is now answering your questions about invertebrates and anything else about the natural world.
Welcome to the Conversation
What do the and the have in common? They are, of course, the two previous winners of ’s Invertebrate of the Year poll. An annual contest that pits some of the the natural world’s finest species against each other in celebration – and to remind ourselves why beetles, slugs, worms and moths and others play a critical role in the planet’s infrastructure.
Contenders to take the tardigrade’s crown this year include the common woodlouse and the immortal jellyfish. We’ll be revealing the rest of the shortlist over the next few days.
As ’s natural history writer, Patrick is one of the UK’s foremost nature writers and has written books about badgers, moths and his lifelong love of the outdoor world. His recent reporting has looked at , the and people .
He kicked off this year’s IOTY countdown with a paean to the humble woodlouse, which he called an evolutionary trendsetter and shared some of its delightful nicknames: “Chucky pig. Slater. Monkey pea. Roly-poly. Boat-builder. Butchy boy. Cheeselog. Hobbling Andrew. Wood pig.”
Patrick will be here at 4pm BST (11am EDT) to answer readers’ questions about this great project. You can also ask him about badgers, or anything else about the natural world.
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