I don't know where the information about them eating seedlings came from but my Lecturer did a PhD in the study of woodlice - he had special permission to use the quarries where the stone to build Liverpool Anglican Cathedral was extracted to do all his field studies - and his studies never showed woodlice as eating anything other than dead and decaying matter. I am so cross, that as a student, camping out in quarries at night to collect the little blighters was not my idea of 'cool' at the time.
Cacoethes: An irresistible urge to do something inadvisable
Posts
I don't know where the information about them eating seedlings came from but my Lecturer did a PhD in the study of woodlice - he had special permission to use the quarries where the stone to build Liverpool Anglican Cathedral was extracted to do all his field studies - and his studies never showed woodlice as eating anything other than dead and decaying matter. I am so cross, that as a student, camping out in quarries at night to collect the little blighters was not my idea of 'cool' at the time.
Maybe they need re-branding. Labybirds and butterflies should not have it all their own way! What about woodbirds?
philippa
Names include:"armadillo bug""boat-builder" (Newfoundland, Canada)"butcher boy" or "butchy boy" (Australia, mostly around Melbourne)"carpenter" or "cafner" (Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada)"cheeselog" (Reading, England)"cheesy bobs" (Guildford, England)"chiggy pig" (Devon, England)
I like the name cheeselogs. Shall we have a vote? I think B3 is right.. they need a renaming.
Where I grew up in Pennsylvania, we called them sow bugs.
I vote 'chiggy pig'
B3 - that is a great name.
I know them as 'slaters'.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
We call them that too Dove
Love chiggy pig though. I'm going to call them that from now on
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Me too!
Where do you find all those pictures LB!!