• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • Shop
    • Gift Vouchers
    • Binoculars and Scopes
    • View Cart
    • Your Account
      • edit-account
      • edit-address
      • lost-password
  • Wildlife Tours
    • Discover Wildlife Weekends
    • Guided Wildlife and Birding Walks
    • Custom Wildlife and Birding Tours
  • Schools
  • Books
  • News
    • Irish Wildlife News
    • International Wildlife News
    • Wildlife Events
    • Wildlife Press Releases
  • Articles
    • Blog
      • Birding
      • Wildlife Photography
      • Whales and Dolphins
      • Mammals
      • Wildlife Podcasts
        • The Calendar Road
      • Biodiversity
      • Wildlife Calendar
    • Species Profiles
      • Amphibians
      • Birds
      • Fish
      • Fungi
      • Invertebrates
      • Mammals
      • Plants
      • Reptiles
    • Feature Articles
      • Choosing Binoculars
      • Birding for Beginners
      • How to watch whales and dolphins
      • How to watch Basking Sharks
      • Wildlife travel
    • Wildlife Portfolio
    • Wild Wide Web
    • Reviews
      • Book Reviews
      • Gear Reviews
        • Wildlife Optics
          • Binocular Reviews
          • Spotting Scope Reviews
        • Wildlife Clothing
        • Wildlife Accessories
  • Work with us
    • Write for us
    • Advertise with us
    • Sponsorship Opportunities
    • Wildlife Marketing Services
  • About
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Disclosure Statement
    • Cookie policy (EU)
  • Contact

Ireland's Wildlife

Irish wildlife, nature and biodiversity

You are here: Home / Species Profiles / Invertebrates / Crustaceans / Woodlouse (sub order Oniscidea)

Woodlouse (sub order Oniscidea)

June 23, 2011 by Calvin Jones Leave a Comment

Common rough wood lice (Porcellio scaber) in leaf litterWoodlice are fascinating, often much maligned little creatures that are found all over Ireland. Turn over a rotting log or large stone in the garden and you’ll probably find a teeming mass of woodlice underneath, attracted by the moist conditions that they need to survive.

There are some 3,500 species of woodlice in the world, with 32 recorded here in Ireland. The more common of these species, like the common rough woodlouse (Porcellio scaber – see photo), the common shiny woodlouse (Oniscus asellus) and the pill bug (Armadillidium vulgare) are abundant around our houses and gardens. These amazing animals are actually crustaceans, more closely related to crabs and lobsters than to their garden neighbours. They belong to a group called isopods (from the Greek words isos, meaning equal, and podes, meaning feet). Most isopods are marine with some occurring in fresh water and a few, like the woodlice, confined to dry land.

Woodlice have a hard exterior skeleton, like insects and spiders, but in woodlice this lets water vapour through – which makes them particularly vulnerable to drying out. Because of this they tend to avoid bright, dry conditions and congregate during the day in moist, dark places like compost heaps, under logs and stones or in cracks and crevices where the danger of drying out is minimal.

Woodlice eat dead or decaying plant matter and are an essential component of nature’s waste disposal system. The ultimate recyclers, they help to break down the complex structure of the material so that vital nutrients are returned to the soil.

Unfortunately for them, their tendency to congregate in dark, damp places, and their attraction to waste vegetable matter, sometimes draws woodlice into houses. They are often labelled as pests, when in truth they do far more good than harm. Addressing problems like damp and ensuring that no vegetable or plant waste accumulates in the home will help keep woodlice away.

Underneath their protective plates woodlice have seven pairs of jointed legs, and in females a brood pouch towards the rear of the body. Most species in Ireland have one brood of babies per year. The number of eggs produced varies according to the size of the female, but upwards of 200 eggs is not uncommon in a brood. Fertilised eggs are transferred to the brood pouch where they hatch in three to nine weeks. Baby woodlice are particularly vulnerable to drying out at this stage and remain in the mother’s protective pouch until after their first moult, when they venture forth on their own.

Because of their hard external skeleton woodlice must moult in order to grow. This moulting happens in two stages, with the back half of the exoskeleton being shed first, followed by the front half a few days later. This two-stage moult is thought to help woodlice to stay active and avoid predators at this vulnerable time, and assists with water conservation.

Small mammals and birds are the main predators of woodlice and can consume hundreds in a day if they can find them. While many spiders find woodlice unpalatable, several will eat them, and some spiders specialise in them, eating almost nothing else.

In the past having woodlice in your house used to be considered unlucky, and any food they walked over was said to be poisoned. Eaten alive, they were said to provide a cure for stomach upsets and diseases of the liver. Like most crustaceans woodlice are quite edible, and are advocated by many "survival enthusiasts” as an alternative food. Some even suggest that for seafood sauce the flavour of woodlice is superior to that of prawns… but I think I’ll take their word for that!

Filed Under: Crustaceans Tagged With: woodlice, woodlouse

About Calvin Jones

Calvin Jones is a freelance writer, author, birder and lifelong wildlife enthusiast. He is founder and editor of IrelandsWildlife.com and founder and wildlife guide of Ireland's Wildlife Tours offering wildlife and birding holidays on Ireland's south coast.

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Search the site

  • Microthemer - Visual editor for your WordPress site

Subscribe to the mailing list

Supporting Ireland’s Wildlife

  • Microthemer - Visual editor for your WordPress site

*****

Footer

Experience Ireland’s Wildlife for yourself

Breaching humpback whale Ireland

Join us on a wildlife adventure on Ireland’s Wild South Coast… and find out first hand why we call this Europe’s Undiscovered Wildlife Frontier.

Find out more…

Ireland's Wildlife runs on the Genesis Framework from StudioPress · Hosted with InterServer

Recent Additions

  • World Migratory Bird Day — ESRI Mapping Migration
  • Vanguard VEO HD 2 8×42 Binocular Review
  • 2023 Discover Wildlife Weekend Dates
  • Review: Hawke Frontier APO 10×42 Binocular
  • Book Review: Crossbill Guides, Ireland
  • Avian Influenza hits Irish seabird colonies
  • German Precision Optics (GPO) Passion HD 10×42 Binocular Review
  • Beneficial Garden Insects and How to Attract Them to Your Garden

Tags

#IWOnTour 8x Binoculars audio binoculars biodiversity birding birds Birdwatch Ireland books cetaceans citizen science CJ Wildlife competition conservation Cork fin whale full size binoculars garden birds garden wildlife Golden Eagle Trust Hawke humpback whale Ireland IWDG Kerry national biodiversity data centre npws optics raptors review reviews spring stranding Vanguard west cork whales whales and dolphins whale watching whalewatching white tailed eagle Wild Atlantic Way Wildlife wildlife crime wildlife photography wildlife podcasts

Take it from the top....

Copyright © 2023 Ireland's Wildlife · Site Design by West Cork Websites · Content by CJ Writing

Manage Cookie Consent
Like most sites, Ireland's Wildlife uses cookies to improve functionality, enhance your user experience and to gauge the popularity of our content.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}