Spyke
lemmy.world

We always just called them Roly-Polys! They provided hours of entertainment for kids in the days before everyone had the Internet lol

60
lemmy.dbzer0.com

I read somewhere a while back that the nicknames for these creatures is highly regional, and it seemed to pan out when their data showed that the regions which used the two names I know them by are the same ones that my family comes from.

Doodle-bug or roly-poly, btw.

19
Crewmanreply
sopuli.xyz

Pill bugs and potato bugs are some others I've heard.

27
lemmy.world

In Nor Cal where I grew up, potato bugs are a totally different bug that looks like a cockroach fucked a grasshopper.

edit: Apparently their real name is a "Jerusalem cricket" and they will bite the shit out of you if you let them.

13

They look like a pale version of our Weta.

But our bugs are chill. Little jumpy and spiky though.

4
MrJameGumbreply
lemmy.world

We have a similar bug here called a cave cricket! They look similar but cave crickets are harmless lol

4
Scubusreply
sh.itjust.works

Not venomous or anything, but if it's the same cave cricket or "spider cricket" we have here then they will also bite the shit out of you.

2

The ones we have here can't bite anything. If they get scared their only defense mechanism is to jump straight at the threat and hope to scare it away lol

3

Yeah, I have a deep-seated irrational fear of bugs large enough to "pop" when you step on them, and I think it stems from growing up around these monstrosities. They're not as bad as bugs in a lot of places, but goddamn does it hurt to get bit by them, especially as a child.

3
lemmy.nz

At least the south east.

(Edit) I say this but reading and Guildford call them cheesy bobs and cheese logs.

What the fuck.

3

Everything starts getting a little bit odd in that part of the country

2

100%

Western Australia: Slater

I can only assume the other states are similar.

2

We called them slaters.

Autocorrect turned that into skaters and I got a hilarious image in my head.

8
lemmy.today

I grew up calling them sow bugs, and I've learned this was weird because I've never met anyone else who called them that!

5
MetaCubedreply
lemmy.world

Are you from Canada by any chance? Ive only heard other Canadians use Roly-Poly for these little guys.

2

Arkansas here; used Rolly-Polly as childhood name for isopods.

1
MrJameGumbreply
lemmy.world

Nope, I'm from South Carolina in the US! That's what everyone around here calls them!

1
carzianreply
lemmy.ml

That's not an earwig, this is an earwig

17
carzianreply
lemmy.ml

That's not an earwig, this is an earwig

3

Also a nice usefull guy, with a lot of bad Myths out there, because of his (useless) tweezers, which only cause interests on the females of this species.

2
carzianreply
lemmy.ml

That's not an earwig, this is an earwig

-2
carzianreply
lemmy.ml

Yeah, my Lemmy client timed out twice trying to upload the photo. Then failed again when I tried using a link. Each time I refreshed it and didn't see a comment, so I figured might as well try again. I noticed the multiple comments but it looks like my client just silently fails when deleting them. I figured it was funny so I didn't try too hard to delete them (ツ)

3

I had a similar thing one time. But my comment wasn't as cute as your repeating earwig, so I think you win out.

4

These guys are not my friends. They chew through the bottom of my tomato plant stems. Just the bottom, never the rest. Just enough to kill my plants, and then off they go to fuck up something else.

Now I catch them and feed them to my chickens.

34
pseudoreply
jlai.lu

I just came for that. Thanks faster friend !

5
lemmy.ml

No one told me life was gonna be this way

11
lemmy.zip

I want some of them to stay very close to me. Like lobsters and shrimp can be close enough to be in ma belly.

1

One of my very first wild friends in fact! Loved playing with them as a kid =)

5
Jakeroxsreply
sh.itjust.works

A couple months ago I had an absolute infestation of these after a rainy week, literally probably cleaned up over a hundred of their carcasses from inside my home.

4

It's somewhat saddening that them dying is still an inconvenience to us.

2

Roly-poly/pillbug vs isopod?

I thought they were the same thing, but pill bugs always look bland while isopods have fancy breeds

9

I wasn't able to find an original, but I would assume it was either talking about the fact that they're crustations and not bugs, or talking about the different regional names for them (roly poly, pill bug, potato bug, etc)

2
azireply
mander.xyz

Pill millipedes (looks like Glomeris marginata) vs isopods (some Armadillidium species as it can roll up into a ball). Incredible case of convergent evolution

1

holy cow, I was today years old when I found out they weren't the same family.

i thought both pictures, top/bottom, were an interesting factoid where they are crustaceans... you mean to tell me the top one is a millipede?! my life is a lie.

1