Went out for drinks with a coupla friends the other day and ended up shedding tears over how much I love millipedes and isopods…. I only had one drink bro…..
A spiky isopod (Akermania besucheti) with an illustration of what its outer shell looks like under electron microscope from Revue suisse de zoologie t.86 (1979).
Hopefully someday I’ll find this one in the terrarium again when it is light out so I can get proper photos. Very unusual A. vulgare isopod for this area, being a greenish yellow tone. It’s much more skittish than the others so it might be months before I even spot it again.
[Image ID: a roly-poly on dirt with an inset image of a coiled roly-poly. Text at the top of the image says “Ew! Pill Bugs!” The coiled roly-poly has a speech bubble saying “No! I am extremely cool!” while the other roly-poly has a speech bubble saying “We are actually crustaceans! And we can remove heavy metals from the soil!” The bottom of the photo has a watermark for Joseph Berger at BugWood.org. End ID]
I’d like to clarify that sure, they can remove heavy metals from the soil, but unless the isopod is then removed from the environment, it will die and release the heavy metals back into the soil. But that doesn’t mean they’re useless! They are incredibly important to the nutrient cycle in an ecosystem because they consume and help break down dead vegetable (and animal!) matter.
Incidentally, the fact that they remove heavy metals from the environment is one of the reasons you shouldn’t feed wild-caught isopods to pet reptiles and amphibians!
Agiant deep-sea isopod,Bathynomus giganteus, with an antipatharian whip coral, Stichopathes sp., in the foreground.
While this isopod was spotted during exploration of “Okeanos Ridge,” we saw several of these throughout the expedition, and even managed to catch footage of one swimming.
Image courtesy of the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, Gulf of Mexico 2017
The seventh generation of Pokémon starts strong with one of my favorites, thank you for voting for it! . . . #drawing #artwork #bugtype #watertype #art #artistsoninstagram #pokemon #tattoodesign #golisopod #tectass #sarmuraï #gusokumushi #gapjumusa #hardscale #seventhgeneration #seventhgen #monster #alola #pokemonsunandmoon #gen7 #pokemonfanart #bug #water #teamskull #isopod (at Stuttgart, Germany) https://www.instagram.com/p/CKIZP75DKbJ/?igshid=1gvxgimp7ojpp
I started two isopod colonies collected about 2 weeks ago (idr?) from when I cleaned out the leaf litter in our dried-out pond. I separated the two groups into “pale with speckles” and “dark with speckles” initially, but the rollie pollie pictured is the only plain one I kept because he’s just SO CUTE AND FRIENDLY!! I love him too much to banish him to the cold, hard outdoors. He’s HUGE, too. Like the size of my pinky nail. So, he’s just grouped in with the dark ones, and I DEFinitely didn’t name him Big Papa, I swear.
I’ve been feeding these guys all sorts of stuff (including homemade eggshell calcium supplement!!) and they’re so adorable how curious they are. So far, their favourite was cauliflower stem slices (it looked like swiss cheese the next day!!)
But enough babying, they needed natural items to keep them busy and entertained (as well as moist and feeling safe.) So today, I cleaned up a bit, gave them each some more dirt (from the compost), sphagnum moss, crushed homemade leaf litter, and decaying wood (and “hides” from that, too.) Big Papa came out to inspect the renovation right away, but I have yet to see the others be so daring. Hopefully they like it, and start breeding some more speckley babies for my future bioactive tank.
Isopod charms are now live on Etsy! Come get them before they scurry away under some leaves or a log!! 19 different varieties to choose from! https://etsy.me/3zGxUyv
