# Potato Bugs = Pill bugs?



## scoloclown (May 21, 2009)

Sorry, I've searched this forum and couldn't find the answer to this question. Are these Pill bugs the same thing as what we call "potato" bugs or "roly poly's" under flipped rocks and other things around the house? Can I place these in the cage with cents or milli's?


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## cacoseraph (May 21, 2009)

what i call potato bugs (and seems to be the norm in CA, USA) is 
http://bugguide.net/node/view/154/bgpage



what i call rolypoly is 
http://bugguide.net/node/view/14


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## Ritzman (May 21, 2009)

cacoseraph said:


> what i call potato bugs (and seems to be the norm in CA, USA) is
> http://bugguide.net/node/view/154/bgpage


we don't call those potato bugs here( I dunno if we even have them).


http://bugguide.net/node/view/264195
This is what I have always called a roly-poly,

and this a potato bug or woodlice
http://bugguide.net/node/view/52006


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## cacoseraph (May 21, 2009)

those are both roly polies to me 


and THIS is why i always try to use taxonomical names as much as possible!


if i was talking in the hobby i would call both those things isopods... ZERO confusion




i think my grandma calls isopods potato bugs, too. she grew up in MI or WI or someplace close to you.  she has told me about how she had to go into the root cellar and pull of all the "potato bugs" from the foodstuffs they were storing in there and then drop the bugs in kerosene 
oh, and she is 89 and did the kerosene thing when she was like... 9 or something, so the local common name could be more than 80 years old 







edit:
you call the isopods that can roll into a ball roly polies and the isopods that can't potato bugs?


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## Ritzman (May 21, 2009)

cacoseraph said:


> edit:
> you call the isopods that can roll into a ball roly polies and the isopods that can't potato bugs?


Yep. Or woodlice 
At least did all throughout my childhood. For the past year and a half they have _all_ been isopods though. And everybody(outside the hobby) thinks that name for them is hodge-podge. 

I wonder how many different species there are in my neck of the woods?

Edit: I find it rather amusing what one area commonly refers to something as, another calls it something totally different.
It can totally screw things up.


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## cacoseraph (May 21, 2009)

Ritzman said:


> Edit: I find it rather amusing what one area commonly refers to something as, another calls it something totally different.
> It can totally screw things up.


heck yeah! really confusing




and to add more confusion... there are millipedes that look like your roly polies!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pill_millipede

read the first paragraph, it might make you laugh


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## agama (May 21, 2009)

hi,
a wood louse looks like a rolypoly





in fact they lok like they are the same thing:?


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## Ritzman (May 21, 2009)

cacoseraph said:


> and to add more confusion... there are millipedes that look like your roly polies!
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pill_millipede
> 
> read the first paragraph, it might make you laugh


Madness. :}  A pill mili. 
I'll stick to the term isopods.

Well I know we have at least two, if not more, families of _Isopoda_ here.
One species can roll into a ball, while another can't.

Thanks for the read cacoseraph.


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## spiderfield (May 21, 2009)

cacoseraph said:


> what i call potato bugs (and seems to be the norm in CA, USA) is
> http://bugguide.net/node/view/154/bgpage
> 
> 
> ...


Maybe its a CA thing, as i've grown up to call these the same as well.


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## scoloclown (May 21, 2009)

Those roly poly's are known as potato bugs here in N. Utah as well. So these ARE pill bugs, then! I'm glad I know that. So, I can go outside and throw a couple of these in my cents and milli's cages to take care of leftovers then? Is there any kind of disease or bacteria thing going on between CB cents and milli's and wild caught pill bugs? Thanks everybody for the replies and the pics of the...isopods.


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## Elytra and Antenna (May 21, 2009)

I've read that potato bugs is the common name given to Jerusalem crickets in CA and much of the southwest where they are common since they often attack potatos.
Usually pillbugs refers to the species that roll into balls while sowbug are the others.


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## pouchedrat (May 21, 2009)

we always called pill bugs "potato bugs" in upstate NY.


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## Elytra and Antenna (May 21, 2009)

pouchedrat said:


> we always called pill bugs "potato bugs" in upstate NY.


Don't you call sowbugs potato bugs too?


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## Travis K (May 21, 2009)

But like Caco said earlier the common names you are all using are Crap!

aside from a few exceptions most the arthropods linked about are ISOPODS.


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## scoloclown (May 21, 2009)

And all of these isopods are okay to place in a cent or milli cage, correct?


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## zonbonzovi (May 21, 2009)

LOL- yes, these are great for your tanks.  Do grab a microscope or your grandmother's reading glasses and check for stowaways.  Or better yet, and if you can collect them locally, get a handful and put them into their own container.  They breed readily, in my experience.  If successful, put the nymphs in your tank.  Mine readily eat the remains of my 'pedes snacks- cricket, roach, whatever.  The nymphs even use cleaned out roach husks as shelter.  I know I'm going to catch hell for saying that I leave dead prey items in tanks, so I'll clarify: If the residual remains aren't eaten within 24 hours so there is ONLY exoskeleton left, I'll remove them.  

Regarding the varied isopods- here in the NW, the kind that rolls into a ball and the kind that are referred to as wood lice are often found together, adding to the confusion.  The only difference in habitat that I can see is that the ahem, roly-pollies, seem to inhabit dark places with more space and under direct sunlight, whereas wood lice are more apt to hide in tighter spaces away from direct sunlight.  And their good on toast...


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## Elytra and Antenna (May 23, 2009)

scoloclown said:


> And all of these isopods are okay to place in a cent or milli cage, correct?


I wouldn't suggest them for a millipede cage.


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## Kimix (May 23, 2009)

Elytra and Antenna said:


> I wouldn't suggest them for a millipede cage.


Any particular reasons why? 

I mainly started culturing mine because I wanted to add them to my GAB tank

Will they harm the millipede eggs?


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## Elytra and Antenna (May 23, 2009)

They're fine in low numbers or in "community terraria" but aren't a good idea for rearing or breeding cages.


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## zonbonzovi (May 23, 2009)

Thanks for the clarification, O.  I didn't even consider that the OP might be breeding- I'd feel terrible if his eggs were eaten because of my hasty reply


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## pouchedrat (May 23, 2009)

Elytra and Antenna said:


> Don't you call sowbugs potato bugs too?


Yep, we did.  They were pretty much the "ones that rolled up and the ones that didn't"


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## CockroachYet (May 24, 2009)

- A few Qs :

1.- Appart from the capacity for rolling itselves of the pill-bugs, ¿¿ what anothers visibles differences are at simply sight between pill-bugs and sow-bugs ??

2.- For the centipedes cages, ¿¿ What is better :  pill-bugs or sow-bugs ??

3.- ¿¿ These isopods becomes themselves into live-food for the centipedes once that they lives inside the same tank ??  or the centipedes becomes customed to their prescence and then ignore them at all ??

4.- ¿¿ What number of isopods are enough for a cage with a lonely centipede ??

- Thanks in advance for your answers. Best regards. Roberto.


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## ZergFront (May 29, 2009)

*ahhh*

I'm used to 3 isopods. The standard pill bugs that live under my catnip plants and the flat, sowbugs that can't roll into a ball. On occassions at the beach, I've seen what look like sowbugs but they are able to walk around submerged in the tide pools.


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