Of two-tailed bugs, absent salamanders, and flipped rocks

Well, we've gone out and flipped our rocks (or not - one of us cheated took an alternate approach.)

It has been a quiet year, probably because I forgot last year, and we lost momentum. In spite of that, we made some interesting finds.

VERY IMPORTANT UPDATE: I just checked Twitter; there are a bunch more Rock Flippers over there. I'll add them to the list in a new post.

Here is the lineup, as it is now, copied from Heather's blog, At the Edge of the Ordinary:

• From Pennsylvania, Kate of Outside My Window participates in IRFD… without flipping a rock! I guess we’ll allow that, especially since she found some nifty spider webs and a small mammal.
•  Here in British Columbia, I (that's Heather - ed.) did flip rocks, and after many tries turned up a couple of worms and a pill-bug (or something like one, anyway).
• Elsewhere in the province, (I, Susannah) face similar challenges with dry rocks, but still manage to find a few things, including (unfortunately) some non-organic debris.
• And to the south in Washington state, Dave Wenning of Wild Fidalgo flips rocks on the beach (and in his garden) and finds several Purple Shore Crabs. And a few other things. Even if he didn’t look very dignified doing it.
• Bill finds several critters under his rocks, including a beautiful millipede. (A beautiful millipede? Well, I think it is.)
• The WNY meet-up page includes a number of rock flipping discoveries, such as a lovely speckled salamander and a pair of slugs from Barbara Newman H., and a pretty black beetle and another salamander from Mark. I’m jealous – I wish I could have found a salamander!

Over in the International Rock Flipping Day Flickr group, many more interesting things have been discovered:

• Sara Rall flipped paving stones and came up with a good variety of small critters, including a rove beetle and a ground cricket. 
• Rob Cruikshank found ants and pupas, and a cute white springtail.
• Paul Fehringer, of Wild Spirit Education, found a red-legged beetle, and a strange (to me) centipede.
• And John Beetham found a spider with the intriguing name of Amaurobius ferox. Among other beasties.

And this was a handy tip: Heather had found a pillbug under one of her rocks. "Or maybe a sowbug," she said; she finds them confusing. So do I, unless I pick them up; pillbugs roll themselves into a ball; sowbugs don't. (Here's a sample pillbug.)

But Sara Rall, in the comments on Heather's post, gave us a quick way to tell the difference, even from a photo.

To tell a pill bug (which can roll up) from a sowbug (which can’t), look at the back end. If it has two “tails” that stick out you have a sowbug (which would be my guess in the photo, but I can’t really see well enough to be certain).

Here's a family of sowbugs I found under a paving stone next door:

"Two-tailed" woodlice, aka sowbugs.

Zooming in. See the tails?

BugGuide has a photo of pillbugs side-by-side with a sowbug for comparison.

Thanks, Sara!

As usual, there were a couple or more Rock Flippers who did the "work" but didn't pass on their findings. If you're one of them, either Heather or I would be happy to add your name to the list; just give us a shout.

And many thanks to Heather for hosting this year. And I hope it rains soon and she finds a salamander; she well deserves it!