Do you like roly polies?

[Panda]

IÔÇÖm doing this awesome science experiment on roly polies and just received my 100 specimens for it. TheyÔÇÖre so cute! Just look at them enjoying those apples and potatoes that I gave them!

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RolyPoly2resized.jpg (145.67 KiB) Viewed 5496 times

Did you know that roly polies are crustaceans like shrimp and not insects? They breathe through gills. The mothers carry their eggs in a pouch called a marsupium, like in a kangaroo. They can drink with their anus by using a tube-shaped structure called a uropod which can wick up water when they needed. They also eat their own poop in a practice called coprography so that they can replenish the copper in their system, an element that it needs to live. When their sick and have an iridovirus, they turn bright blue or purple and their blood is blue. Their blood is blue because they have hemocyanin in their blood which contains copper instead of iron. Finally, theyÔÇÖre related to this awesome creature, a giant isopod:



WeÔÇÖll, IÔÇÖm off to work on my experiments for now. IÔÇÖm going to see what affect roly polies have on soil composition!

[oksnoop2]

I used to play with them when i was a small child. That's super neat and quite a coincidence as i was just about to post my own anthropoid thread.

I recently captured one of these.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scutigera_coleoptrata




This was 2 or 3 days ago. Around 6:20 am. I just did not have the nerve to kill it. So i put it outside on my porch. It was sort of cold but i figured it would scurry away. I get back home to find that the creature had barely moved. I guess the cold air had sort of paralyzed it. SO feeling even worse I decide to put it in a container and bring it inside till it warmed up. Days pass, I check up on it tonight only to find out that it has shed most of it's legs and appeared to be near death. So i just decided to put it back outside and let nature finish what I started.



I feel really bad. I think though the lesson I've taken from this experience is that I am not well suited to take care of small creatures. Further more I think i will greatly reduce my meddling with nature.

[knorke]

afaik most insects need specific temperature, dampness, light etc.
if you just put them in some glass they are likely to die...

[oksnoop2]

Well I read up on it. And I created a warm, damp, dark place for it.

[SanadaUjiosan]

Its grave!

As to the matter of roly polies, me and my brother called them Melvilles when we were young, as that was Chucky's name for his pet roly poly in Rugrats.

Go me.

[oksnoop2]

I called them beetle-bugs.

[Panda]

I used to play with them when i was a small child. That's super neat and quite a coincidence as i was just about to post my own anthropoid thread.

I recently captured one of these.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scutigera_coleoptrata

This was 2 or 3 days ago. Around 6:20 am. I just did not have the nerve to kill it. So i put it outside on my porch. It was sort of cold but i figured it would scurry away. I get back home to find that the creature had barely moved. I guess the cold air had sort of paralyzed it. SO feeling even worse I decide to put it in a container and bring it inside till it warmed up. Days pass, I check up on it tonight only to find out that it has shed most of it's legs and appeared to be near death. So i just decided to put it back outside and let nature finish what I started.


I feel really bad. I think though the lesson I've taken from this experience is that I am not well suited to take care of small creatures. Further more I think i will greatly reduce my meddling with nature.

That's too bad that it died. I'd never heard of one of those, but Wikipedia says that it likes to live in people's homes and eat other arthropods and insects. It sounds like a helpful creature.

That's cool that you were able to find such a neat arthropods. I had a run in with an insect the other day too. I was walking to class and found a Luna Moth hitching a ride on my pants leg:



It was a beautiful, male luna moth and I have no idea why it decided to land on my pants leg. I didn't disturb a moth resting place or anything. I then asked my professor if he had a box for me to carry it in (otherwise I was going to leave it there because it didn't seem to want to come off.) and brought it to one of my biology professors who introduced me to someone who identified it for me. It was a lot of fun, but I let it go in a safe, dark place shortly afterwards since they're nocturnal and only live for a week.


Another interesting thing about roly polies is that the hemocyanin that exists in their blood also exists in horseshoe crabs' blood and horseshoe crabs' blood is used for sterilization procedures in the medical industry.

[Panda]

Its grave!

As to the matter of roly polies, me and my brother called them Melvilles when we were young, as that was Chucky's name for his pet roly poly in Rugrats.

Go me.

I called them beetle-bugs.

They're also called pill bugs and potato bugs.

[Coresair]

Those are some spoiled potato bugs . You should make them work for their potatoes...

[fc14159]

I don't feel bad for the centipede at all. Centipedes are scary. Very scary.

As for roly polies, I enjoyed keeping a few of them as pets when I was younger. I also had a caterpillar that eventually turned into the blandest moth. I was quite disappointed.

Another interesting thing about roly polies is that the hemocyanin that exists in their blood also exists in horseshoe crabs' blood and horseshoe crabs' blood is used for sterilization procedures in the medical industry.

omg do people kill horseshoe crabs for their blood? I've never heard of people doing anything with them before. All I knew is that they migrate to the Delaware Bay, although I've never seen them.

[KaiserJ]

man those centipedes are common in the basements in my neighbourhood (old houses i guess.) i save most insects but those centipedes are at the top of my "must smash" list. its a short list, just centis, earwigs, mosquitos and wasps of various types.

i like the "roly polies"; i always called them potato bugs for some reason.

[SanadaUjiosan]

Earwigs are nasty creatures. They like my house. There was a wet towel in our basement for a long time, and when I moved it, it was covered in their dead bodies. Really nasty.

[SwiftSpear]

I called them sow bugs and potato bugs. There is a type that can roll up into a ball, and another type that can not. I like the bally ones better, but I one fed a bunch to fish in a coy pond I found

[Forboding Angel]

I always liked roly polys, I have used them as bait before when fishing. Fish seem to like them muchly.

I try not to kill them, because they help the soil irrc. Same reason I try not to kill the non-dangerous spiders, basically, they eat a lot of bugs that I really don't like. Centipedes are on the must die list tho. Hate bugs like that.

Thankfully we don't have them in CA, but when I lived in KS there were brown crickets everywhere. I tried not to kill them because, tbh, they don't do anything that is particularly annoying, except try to get it on with other crickets in the house at which point you have to spend half the night hunting the little bastards down so you can throw em out.

Ticks and other parasites are on my painful death list (when I was a kid, I lived in TN, and they are everywhere down there and will suck you dry if given half a chance), meaning burning, boiling, death by extreme compression (one of the few ways to actually kill the bastards... get them inbetween your fingernails and squeeze/grind - it's nasty and messy though), and my all time favorite, death by impalement upon a red hot needle. It's worth mentioning that I haven't done any of that stuff to ticks since I was 10 or so, but anyone who has regularly had to deal with them will totally understand the sentiment (they tend to carry diseases, so it's a very good idea to kill them whenever you can).

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Tick

[SanadaUjiosan]

I have severed many a tick in two with a knife in the woods.

I doubt any individual killings I commit to insects can put a damper on their role in my immediate surroundings. The amount of insects on this planet dwarfs humans by so much that its funny.

[Machete234]

Against ticks put your trousers in your socks and hope nobody sees you
when coming home shower immediatly those bastards need half an hour or so to find a soft spot to bite you.
I had maybe 3-4 ticks total and only one in the genital area (that sound is awful *rip* )

I try not to kill them, because they help the soil irrc. Same reason I try not to kill the non-dangerous spiders, basically, they eat a lot of bugs that I really don't like. Centipedes are on the must die list tho. Hate bugs like that.

I really would have the instinct to crush those too, big spiders also.

[smoth]

I'll help any and every animal I can. I once caught a small brown bat in a shirt because it was trapped in a hallway. The little guy let out the most terrible scream but it was very cute once he calmed down. I have caught birds and assorted other things. I make only one exception. CATS I hate all and every cat, they damage local wildlife because their irresponsible owners let them out at night and seldom do they sterilize the shits.

[SinbadEV]

We call them "pill bugs" or "wood lice"... and sometimes "You know, the bugs that look like little Armadillos".

[Masure]

... I make only one exception. CATS I hate all and every cat, they damage local wildlife because their irresponsible owners let them out at night and seldom do they sterilize the shits...

Don't you make a second exception for humans ?

[Panda]

Those are some spoiled potato bugs . You should make them work for their potatoes...

Lol.

Another interesting thing about roly polies is that the hemocyanin that exists in their blood also exists in horseshoe crabs' blood and horseshoe crabs' blood is used for sterilization procedures in the medical industry.

omg do people kill horseshoe crabs for their blood?

Yes, but not in very large numbers. They only do that when testing for waterborne bacteria which are otherwise hard to kill regardless of what sterilization technique you use and tend to make people very sick if they happened too get in materials used for surgery. It used to be that we didn't know what was causing these people to get sick until the ability of the horseshoe crabs' blood to detect and defend against that bacteria was discovered.

I called them sow bugs and potato bugs. There is a type that can roll up into a ball, and another type that can not. I like the bally ones better, but I one fed a bunch to fish in a coy pond I found

All sow bugs can roll up into a ball, but there are other bugs that look similar to them (species of silverfish) which can't.

Thankfully we don't have them in CA, but when I lived in KS there were brown crickets everywhere. I tried not to kill them because, tbh, they don't do anything that is particularly annoying, except try to get it on with other crickets in the house at which point you have to spend half the night hunting the little bastards down so you can throw em out.

That Luna Moth that landed on my pants leg is a part of a species that, in adulthood, only lives to mate for 7 days and doesn't eat, but I'm sure that it just landed on my pants leg to rest since it was daytime and my pants were made of a dark greenish cloth.


I researching Yucca Moths too!

I'll help any and every animal I can. I once caught a small brown bat in a shirt because it was trapped in a hallway. The little guy let out the most terrible scream but it was very cute once he calmed down. I have caught birds and assorted other things.

It really was a cute little bat!