Talk:Woodlouse

message: Is there use in a specific AP Biology lab truly important with regard to the insect?  More importantly, why is the AP Biology even mentioned?  If it does stay, can the use be elaborated upon, perhaps?
There is an animal behavior lab that I did in biology in which the roly-poly was used to study taxis and kinesis in a simple organism. However, I am not sure if it is significant. A sample experiment can be found here: [|http://www.biologycorner.com/worksheets/isopod.html] Hm29168 (talk) 20:40, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: AP Biology

message: I have found a source of this information – according to Campbell Biology 2017 woodlice are terrestial animals.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeremi zajac (talk • contribs) 11:03, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Citation needed – terrestial animal

message: I am having difficulty finding information about woodlice being used in old medicine, can anyone help? --J011 22:25, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Woodlice in medicine 

message: Has anyone ever heard of woodlice being called Cheesy Bugs?
Yes i have heard of it. Everyone knows that woodlice are called cheesy bugs - From a credible source
My Dad who lived in England, Wales, and Cyprus, used to call them Cheesy Bugs.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.56.73.82 (talk) 21:12, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cheesy Bug? 

message: they are utterly ditestable creatures and i have a real problem with them, does anybody know how to kill them??? Dan waz eya 05@hotmail.co.uk 20:15, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: stomping them works —Preceding unsigned comment added by 154.5.132.51 (talk • contribs) 03:20, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: why would you want to kill them? they don' eat your food, they don't go in your bed, they don't destroy your home, all they do is exist... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dio23 (talk • contribs) 15:08, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: How do you get rid of woodlouse from your attick bedroom

message: As noted by User:Theshibboleth above, many of the names listed here are not found anywhere else, and even if they're not vandalism, we're laying ourselves open to it by allowing this absurd list of slang to continue expanding. I suggest that from now on, only "common names" with a cited source be accepted, and that that source must not be simply another list of different names for woodlice (of which there are many on the web, most of them making use of this article, I should think). I have tried to find references for as many of the names as possible, and have removed any for which no good reference could be found. I have also taken out the geographical information, where no citation corroborated it. "Potato bug" looks like it might be used for woodlice somewhere, but I couldn't find a source; all the sites I found used the term to refer to the Jerusalem cricket. --Stemonitis 08:57, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Addendum: I have just stumbled across the results of a Harvard dialect survey , showing a variety of terms used in the US for woodlice (possibly just Armadillidium, judging from the description). I have resisted adding all the answers given by less than about 2% of respondents (e.g. "basketball bug"), because 2% of respondents call them "centipedes" and 1% "millipedes". This is clearly at the limit of folk taxonomy, so I can't be sure from that evidence alone that a "basketball bug" is not something else that is often confused with a woodlouse. Of course, if there are further sources somewhere, then that's another thing. --Stemonitis 15:05, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

text: If that is so (and I've no reason to doubt it), then it shouldn't be too difficult to find a reference to back the statement up. I can't find any website that uses it, except ones which evidently copied our old list. --Stemonitis 10:47, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In Australia I've never heard any names other than "slater" and "butcher boy" which seemed to be equally common when I was growing up in Melbourne a few decades ago. — Hippietrail (talk) 14:01, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I live in Melbourne, Australia and we have the ones that curl up into a ball. Ive only ever heard the name "Slater". 121.44.203.223 (talk) 06:45, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

text: I've lived in Reading (UK), in Newbury (a town about 15 miles away from Reading) and now live in a village outside Reading.  I've been to most of the towns in Berkshire.  I've never once heard the term 'cheeselog' before reading this article.  Note that the reference is to someone researching accents and making an off-hand comment to the affect that he came across the term used to refer to woodlice - but he gives no indication whether this was meant to be common or maybe a one-off used by a tiny number of people.  I think it should be removed.  Conversely, every child I know (now, and when I was a child) just called them 'piggies' - but this is not listed under common names.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.156.125.60 (talk) 09:14, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Common names and citing sources 

message: Does anybody know how big these guys get?RWgirl 20:42, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The largest woodlouse is Ligia oceanica, it may reach 3 cm in length.     --Crustaceanguy(t/co/cw) 00:58, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: size

message: The "Woodlice in Fiction" section has a link to "La métamorphose des cloportes". However, that's a French movie, almost unknown in the English-speaking world, and unlikely to ever have a Wikipedia article for it. So, it seems in the interest of not having a perminent broken link, three things could be done. First, simply remove the links, and leave it as a word. Second, link it to IMDB. Or third, link to the French Wikipedia, which has an article about it at http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_M%C3%A9tamorphose_des_cloportes. Whatever's descided about what to do with it, I could easily do the first two, but I've never linked to another version of Wikipedia, and I'm not sure how to do it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kvn8907 (talk • contribs) 22:05, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Cross-wiki links are easy enough — you just have to remember to add a colon at the beginning. So, to link to the French article, you type :fr:La métamorphose des cloportes. I think any of your three options would be acceptable. --Stemonitis 08:37, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Didn't really work. I tried that, but it made the sentence read "* In :fr:La métamorphose des cloportes movie woodlice (cloportes) are a part of the title, and shots of woodlice appear during the opening credits." Kevin 19:14, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, you need to use a piped link at the same time. I probably should have said so. --Stemonitis 09:34, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  French wiki 

message: I changed the gallery a bit, to get the most species I now have added the picture of P. scaber and O. asellus together. First I removed the picture of unrolled A. vulgare (it's a bit vague when enlarged), but Stemonitis disagreed with that. I think the current is the best solution (having max. 4 pics, otherwise layout is a bit messed-up on 1280x1024 and 1024x768).
:The current setup is much better. I had no idea we had a picture with two species on it. Only showing Armadillidium rolled up gives little clue as to how it looks (and how different it looks) when unrolled, so I think it makes sense to keep that in. A better-focussed image would be nice, but in the interim, the one that's there will have to do. Maybe I should go grubbing around with my camera in some leaf litter later today… --Stemonitis 12:30, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pictures 

message: I see this article suggests that pillbugs and pill millipedes are an example of parallel evolution, i wonder if this has been coppied incorrectly from the pill millipede article, which states that the defensive rolling ability may have evolved separately in each of the two pill millipede orders.
Pill bugs and pill millipedes probably share a common ancestor at some point but then just about everything would if you went back far enough.
Wouldn't convergent be more accurate?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.6.85.54 (talk) 15:10, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree.92.8.227.136 (talk) 09:13, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Evolution 

message: They seem like clumnsy creatures, they fall over often when my cats walk by them or theres a sudden gush of wind, and they have great difficulty in rolling back up why cant they get up?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.199.31.1 (talk) 17:16, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: clumsy

message: How many legs does a woodlouse have?
Currently Terrestrial locomotion#Number of legs claims they have 14.
But crustacean seems to imply they are decapods with 10 legs.
This woodlouse article should state the true number.
--68.0.124.33 (talk) 14:41, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  legs 

message: After the taxonomic list was converted from superfamilies to sections, the family Buddelundiellidae went missing from the list. In the original classification, this family was in the superfamily Trichoniscoidea, which also included Trichoniscidae. Does this mean that Buddelundiellidae would be in the same section as Trichoniscidae?--Crustaceanguy (talk) 13:22, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  What happened to [[Buddelundiellidae]]? 

message: The main article states:
"They are not generally regarded as a serious household pest as they do not spread disease and do not damage wood or structures"
at the end of the "Ecology" section, but it is immediately followed by a section entitled, "Wood and Timber Damage" which begins with,
"The woodlouse buries itself into damp rotten wood and eats away at it often resulting in extensive damage to the interior of wood."
Having grown up with woodlice (yes, that is the proper name) I have never been aware of any wood damage by them.  Could this have been added by Rentokil to strum up business in the recession?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.30.186.250 (talk) 12:04, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Wood lice only eat decaying wood, not fresh/treated wood. They are common around here (referred to as 'woodbugs') in rotting logs and will not damage structures unless it is already suffering from severe rot, especially when caused by moisture exposure.ExoditeTyr (talk) 19:20, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Do they damage wood or not? 

message: "There are 37 native or naturalised species in the United Kingdom, ranging in colour and in size (3–30 mm)"
What source is this from? I've got conflicting info from a published paper; Paoletti, M.G. & Hassal, M., 1999. Woodlice (Isopoda: Oniscidea): their potential for assessing sustainability and use as bioindicators. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment, 74, pp. 157-165.
Here it states there are 42 species in "Great Britain" of which 13 are considered non-native and introduced by man, and they range in size from 1.2-30mm (so not far off from the article). I would edit this page myself, but i'm neither an expert nor capable of using wikipedia (so forgive me if this is the incorrect way of doing these things).  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.103.103.158 (talk) 21:27, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: And who really cares how many species are extant in the UK, as opposed to other regions?  Weird section, was tempted to simply delete. Huw Powell (talk) 03:50, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

text: Are there really woodlice as big as 30mm in the UK?  If true, this would be interesting - I've never seen one bigger than about half (maybe a bit less) that size, anywhere in the UK.  Is there a larger species somewhere in the UK, perhaps in a limited geographical area?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.156.125.60 (talk) 09:23, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Ligia oceanica can reach that size, and is common around the British coastline. --Stemonitis (talk) 09:30, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm.  The article for Ligia oceanica says that it is *not* a woodlouse - though is closely related.  Is is (semi-)aquatic?  The article kind of implies this by referring to rock pools but doesn't otherwise make it clear.  (What I mean is, if I was at the beach, would I look for them *in* water pools or maybe under rocks and in crevices out of water?) 81.156.125.60 (talk) 09:39, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

text: Not any more. Thanks for pointing that out. If you go to the shore, look on and under rocks above the waterline. --Stemonitis (talk) 09:45, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  37 spp in UK? 3-30mm? 

message: Since woodlice have gills, can terrestrial woodlice (such as the common woodlouse) breath underwater? --The High Fin Sperm Whale (talk) 00:29, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: See the answer given earlier under the heading Gills. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 14:14, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Breathing underwater 

message: Woodlice have not evolved for millions of years. The same 3,000 species were still in existence at the time of the dinosaurs.
The first sentence is factually impossible according to accepted biological thinking.  Even if the "same 3,000 species" figure in the second sentence were correct, each of those 3,000 species would have been continuously evolving, first due to the Red Queen hypothesis as the species struggle against their co-evolving diseases and parasites, and second due to genetic drift from neutral mutations.
This section appears to have been created to promote a Creationist or similar view, by stating a controversial view as decided fact and thus quite likely violating WP:NPOV.  It also fails to cite sources, even Creationist ones, and thus violates WP:V quite clearly and rather egregiously.  As such, I've stricken the section in question.
89.100.143.141, if you wish to re-add these or similar statements to the article, you will need to cite verifiable sources, particularly prominent and notable ones (WP:WEIGHT), and otherwise obey Wikipedia's community guidelines.
-- Chronos Tachyon (talk) 08:10, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Non-Evolution 

message: are this bugs edible?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.162.143.26 (talk) 02:14, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: By the spiders in my shed they are.  Beyond that I wouldn't want to find out! 86.133.53.44 (talk) 10:22, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: As Food

message: The article appears to lack any reference to the woodlouse's diet.  Somebody with the requisite knowledge ought to remedy that fault.  J. D. Crutchfield | Talk 00:04, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: From the article: "They are usually nocturnal and are detritivores, feeding mostly on dead plant matter. they have also been known to feed on cultivated plants, such as ripening strawberries and tender seedlings." What more do you think need so be included? Mark Marathon (talk) 06:58, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Diet/food 

message: they eat dead plant matter. indeed this is an amazing omission. I do not feel competent to fill it up.
:::From the article: "They are usually nocturnal and are detritivores, feeding mostly on dead plant matter. they have also been known to feed on cultivated plants, such as ripening strawberries and tender seedlings." What more do you think need so be included? Mark Marathon (talk) 06:58, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  answer 

message: The article implies that all the woodlice in the Americas came from Europe, imported by humans.  Trichorhina tomentosa, though, is described on the List of UK Woodlouse species Page as the only american species imported FROM the americas to Europe ?  Which is true?  The ref link is broken, but my guess is that it will show evidence that the common European species have gone to the Americas, not that there were no american ones before.
IceDragon64 (talk) 22:46, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  American woodlice? 

message: Please mention that Wood lice are not lice. People could get confused. 198.24.30.126 (talk) 21:27, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Where specifically do you want it to go? Morphdogwhat did I do now? 02:03, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 17 July 2017 

message: There are a few statements in this article that don’t seem to make any sense.
“A woodlouse is a terrestrial isopod crustacean” … “A few woodlice have returned to water.” So which is it, are they terrestrial, or are they aquatic and terrestrial?
“Living in a terrestrial environment, woodlice breathe through trachea-like lungs in their paddle-shaped hind legs (pleopods), called pleopodal lungs.” So how do the aquatic species breathe?
“Females are also capable of reproducing asexually.” The reference suggests that only one species can do this.
“Pill millipedes can be distinguished from woodlice on the basis of having two pairs of legs per body segment instead of one pair like all isopods. Pill millipedes have twelve to thirteen body segments and about eighteen pairs of legs, whereas woodlice have eleven segments and only seven pairs of legs.” What? 2 pairs of legs/segment X 12 segments = 24 pairs of legs. Not 18. 1 pair of legs per segment x 11 segements = 11 pairs of legs. Not 7.
:[Addressing just the preceding paragraph] Why do you assume that every segment has legs? ". . . having two pairs of legs per body segment . . ." means that if a segment has legs, it has two pairs, not that all segments have (two pairs of) legs. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.211.131.202 (talk) 15:11, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: [Addressing just the last paragraph] Anyone else wondering this would likely click the wikilinked name and read the article on that species. Alternatively, you could yourself copy the relevant information (". . . in and around the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East.") and reference from that article to this one. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.211.131.202 (talk) 15:16, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Issues 

message: Created a Workpage here: Talk:Woodlouse/Rewrite_2018</br>
The intended structure should be obvious, please flesh out any of the bullet points or sections if you can, the references I intend to use are already in place but  most are paywalled, use Sci-hub and Libgen.</br> 
Add any references that may be useful to the References Dump section. Any comments or queries go here I guess.</br>
This my first time doing this so supervision of more experienced editors is probably needed...
Edit-pi (talk) 01:11, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rewrite 2018 

message: Is contrary to it’s main page and disproven by laboratory experiments. Akalovid (talk) 10:20, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: , thanks . Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 12:10, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  ERROR: „Dysdera crocata feeds exclusively on woodlice.“ 

message: Time to zap 'em, each and every one. --jpgordon𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇 03:53, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll start removing each of the unsourced names this week. --jpgordon𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇 14:28, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  collective term a quabble of woodlice seems more than suspect: it is sourced from two places in wiktionary one of which says "many of these terms are humorous and appear only in word lists" and the other "Don't trust this list; many of these entries are fanciful" and appears nowhere else as far as I can see ..  ~~ jw (talk) 15:50, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: There is this 2020 article by the BBC that blurbles about almost 250 different common names for this creature, though the data used was soaked up from a survey conducted by Dr Warren Maguire et al. Do-Droppy (talk) 13:16, 2 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unsourced "common names"