Wednesday, March 4, 2009

roly poly


Armadillidiidae is a family of woodlice, a terrestrial crustacean group in the order Isopoda. Unlike members of the family Porcellionidae, members of this family can roll into a ball, giving them their common name of "pill bug", or the more recent and increasingly popular term, "roly-poly", which has been used regionally as early as 1968. Uncited references also date use of the term in Texas as early as 1925.[1]

The best known species in the family is Armadillidium vulgare, the common pill bug. These arthropods commonly feed on decaying vegetation and are found under logs, garbage pails or any other place where moisture can be found. Moisture is essential to pill bugs due to their breathing organs, which are like gills. Pill bugs, although often thriving in damp areas, have often been known to live in dry beds. Pill bugs' defensive posture is curling up into a ball. Pill bugs have no specialized predators, though they play host to specialized parasitoids in the fly family Rhinophoridae. ...from Wikipedia


~We have been having alot of fun around here with rolly pollies. ...This is actually all in response to a bug freak out that Mama and burger had last Friday in the absence of our fierce leader(daddy was working late). the story goes...I was on the phone and burger says" here mama" and hands me a tiny something, I figured it was a StarWars mini we have a gazillion lying around. .

...but, low and behold it was small stink bug. ewww, yucky yuk yuk( they ruin tomato plants!!) ~ As you might suspect, I FREAKED OUT!!! I screamed and swatted it to the floor (or so I thought). We discovered that it was not on the floor but on Burger's lap , He got so scared and started crying and freaking out as well (just like mama ) . Well needless to say I felt just awful about scaring my little munchkin. So after I carefully caught the lil' monster and put him outside( tip..if you ever run in to one of these critters don't kill it in your house cause they will stink! try not to scare them either ) I made a mental vow that I would have to get over my little (hehehe) fear in order to make sure burger did not inherit this debilitating disorder.


~Well of course daddy was the first to take charge of this situation. As soon as there was warm sunshine , they went out bug hunting...rolly pollies!... On a side note I am not scared of rolly pollies , worms, or lady bugs. TodayI found this cute little bug catcher holder thing with a little magnifier attached to the top and Burger just loved it!

....We had a fun time together conquering our fears

PS....I couldn't find the bob will's version, so here is Marty Robbins singing You guessed it!





4 comments:

Anonymous said...

i love you...

Rebecca said...

Heehee.. I love it. Ella has a fear of the common house fly. There was one trapped in her room once and it landed on her during naptime.
Snakes? No problem. House fly? Freak-out.

Judy said...

Those little roly-poly critters have been roly-polies all my life. Over the years we've befriended many of them.

Like you, I despise stink bugs. I find no redeeming quality...so I kill them, too. You are so right...don't squish them in an unventilated area, because they are true to their name.

So glad you are wise not to pass along phobias to Burger...I have a 12 year old grandson who is mortified by lizards, because his very blond mother was not quite so aware of how we become afraid of things.

I wanted to let you know this morning I needed a needle in a pinch and the only one I could find had glue on it. I remembered the handy dandy needle sharpener you sent me and used it. http://belleandburger.blogspot.com/search/label/projects%20from%20the%20web With only a few pokes it was sharp and shiny. I love my little sharpener. It works wonders. :) Thank you again for sending it to me.

alittlebitofscrap said...

Cute story! I remember playing with roly polies when I was a kid.. fun, fun :)