bugs – Alex Acks: Sound and Nerdery

The new arthropod invasion

I’ve been seeing fewer pillbugs these days, but more millipedes. While I wish the little guys would find somewhere else to hang out, I don’t have a problem with them.

I actually have a lot of fond memories of millipedes. I used to volunteer at the Butterfly Pavilion and Insect Center in Westminster, Colorado. Back then they let us handle the giant African millipedes, which was a very cool experience. Those things get up to over a foot long, and like to curl around your wrists like bracelets made of cable. And then poop on you, but they don’t mean anything by it.

Watching them walk is a really cool thing; their legs move in distinct waves. Millipedes, it should be noted, have two pairs of legs per body segment. And they don’t have stingers. That would be centipedes (who have only one pair of legs per body segment), and I’m not a fan of those.

There was a giant Sonoran centipede at the insect center too. They did not let us handle that. It had stingers on the tail, one on each foot, and some terrifying jaws. Those things can eat lizards and little rodents. And apparently you should always pick them up with forceps longer than the actual centipede, because they can curl up fast and latch on.

Ugh.

But millipedes. Millipedes are cool. They also roll up in a ball like pillbugs when they’re scared. Which is… shockingly adorable.

I’ve been picking up the little guys and letting them crawl over my hands as I carry them outside. They’re much better at clinging than pillbugs. Though if you play with millipedes, you should wash your hands afterwards. And not just because of the messy millipede poops (they’re kind of like the cows of the arthropod phylum, if you take my meaning) but because they secrete defensive chemicals if they get scared – such as hydrogen cyanide.

Also, unlike pillbugs, they have no terrifying marine cousins. So family reunions are, presumably, all cute with occasional pooping, and no tongue-eating.

I’m spending an inordinate amount of time these days on arthropod rescue. But we’ll see who’s laughing when I see a magical millipede safely to the planter outside and get three wishes as a reward.

Roly poly interlopers

Just today, I’ve removed three pillbugs from my apartment. I have no idea where they’re coming from, but they really like to hang around my kitchen. Maybe they’re hoping for a cup of tea. Or a beer, it’s pretty hot out even in the morning.

Pillbugs are the least offensive arthropods I’ve encountered since moving to Texas. There’s the giant cockroaches that everyone tries to pretend are okay by calling them palmetto bugs, but let’s not kid ourselves. There’s the tactical mosquitos. There’s the thing in my bathroom that I crushed with a wad of toilet paper this morning that we will not speak of further. There was the other thing that I encountered in my shower, which I mercifully can only remember as a mahogany-colored blob (I wasn’t wearing my glasses at the time) that I beat into a disturbingly large smear with a shampoo bottle.

I’ve got fond memories of pillbugs from growing up. What kid hasn’t had fun poking these little guys and watching them curl up into little grey-black, segmented pills?

Pillbugs are crustaceans (so they have blue blood), they breathe through gills (but spend all their life on land), and they’re exceedingly cute. They also tickle if you let them walk across your skin, kind of like millipedes. They also eat their own poop (to recover excreted copper), but thankfully have not done so in my presence.

Apparently the ones in Texas are mostlyArmadillium vulgare, which I’m pretty sure are the same ones we have in Colorado. I think it’s pretty neat that their family name is Armidillidiidae, which I’m guessing was named for armadillos, since those can also curl up into a ball. Though unlike pillbugs, armadillos aren’t nearly as cute and can apparently seriously fuck up your car if you run over one. Armadillium vulgare is apparently actually a European pillbug, so it’s a transplant.

Oh yeah. And they’re in order Isopoda. Which means they’re related to these guys, which I think is another argument for returning pillbugs safely to the wild habitat of the courtyard garden outside my window. Because I don’t want one of their big brothers showing up while I’m in the shower and chittering at me in a menacing fashion to indicate its displeasure that I stepped on second cousin three times removed Rita.

Though of course, there’s also the parasitic tongue-eating isopod that makes me glad I’m not a fish and oh god I wish I could unsee that.

Suddenly pillbugs seem… less cute.