Speedy woodlouse

A patch of yellow dead nettle is blooming next door, and my neighbour has moved out, so I picked all the flowers to prevent them from going to seed and invading the world. Or at least, my part of the world.

Hidden beneath a flower head, I discovered a sowbug.

Philoscia muscorum, the  Fast woodlouse. Well named.

Moving the stem around to get a better view of him, I knocked him out onto the table, and he took off running, much faster than any sowbug I've seen before. I chased him down, trapped him, and took a batch of photos, then searched BugGuide. He's a European import, and, while he's built like the sowbugs I see every day (aka woodbugs, pill bugs, roly-polies, etc.), he doesn't act at all like one.

First, he runs. Fast. "Our" woodbugs trundle along slowly enough for me to go for a pill bottle and come back, and still find them on their way to shelter.

Second, he "hides" in the first available shadow he finds. He freezes there, and takes quite a bit of nudging before he realizes he can really still be seen. The usual woodbugs here keep on going until they're invisible.

Fast woodlouse "hiding".

Next, if you flip him on his back, he lies there, playing dead. The other woodbugs either roll into a ball (pillbugs, Armadillidium vulgare), or wave their 14 legs frantically in the air until they manage to right themselves again.

Not so fast, any more. Playing dead.

And last, he and his family live in plants, rather than under some shelter at ground level. This one was on yellow dead nettle; one on BugGuide was found in a rosebush.

In one way, he acts like the others; once he's found a safe spot, he tends to stay put. This critter is still in the dying dead nettle flower that I found him in. As soon as I post this, I'll take him out to the nettle patch and set him free.

UPDATE: I've been asked, on Facebook, how I know he's male. I don't. When I don't know, I randomly pick a sex, because I don't like calling critters with a mind of their own (no matter how feeble) an "it".

A female sowbug may have brood sacs at the base of some of her legs, seen when she's belly-up. I don't think I see any in the photo above.

And the first two pleopods of the five on the pleon (that triangular covering at the tail) of a male are elongated. In the photo, only the last three are visible.

Winter quarters

Another few old photos; these are from last October.

Woodbug in rotting pine cone, with snail.

Every fall, I pile some of the current crop of pine cones underneath a potted cedar, to help keep the cold out. In a pot, without the insulation provided by the surrounding soil, a plant is more vulnerable to cold, so even when the plant itself is winter-hardy, I wrap and cover its pot.

Over the winter, the centers of the cones rot, liberating the seeds. Some of these sprout, but that's not the point. The tightly-closed cone becomes a mini-compost pile, its own heat source; even when the ground is frozen hard, the center of the cone stays cool and moist. So it's a winter home for the small animals that don't necessarily go into stasis during these months.

Several times during the cold weather, I bring in a few cones and break them up to see who's living there. There are always a fair number, all wide awake.

In this batch, I found several snails, a family of woodbugs, a few baby slugs, earthworms, two species of springtails, millipedes, and one plant louse. Smaller things scuttled and slithered out of sight as fast as I broke off the scales of the cone; probably more 'pedes, and a spider or three.

Cyanide millipede

Another millipede, sleeping. And the head of a long earthworm, plowing through the composted wood.

Plant louse, exploring a sheet of paper on my desk. Seriously cute.

A pinhead snail, not the same species as the one above. He hid when I moved him to the paper, but a minute later, set out to explore the desk. I put him back in the cone.

When I was done, as usual, I collected the remains of the cones, critters and all, and replaced them under the tree, covered with a layer of duff for warmth.

They made it through the winter; this afternoon, when I moved a couple of pots in the garden, they were all there, with a crowd of their friends and relations.