Villainous Two

Our wormy friends thread is getting too long so I thought we could start fresh here.

Since this is the soil and composting forum I think another soil related bug might be interesting. One in particular catches my attention. The Sow bug or rolly polly bug aka pill bug. They are harmless looking things that help break down wood fibers in the compost pile but do we want them breeding in the garden? Time to find out how the procreate, what they do for us and how, when or if we should get rid of them.

I'll start the research here with an interesting little fact:

For those of you who are interested in programs for and by worms, I have bumped up the "dumpster diving for coffee grounds" thread. Similarly demented minds at work.

katiebear

Well that link only adds to the confusion about good or bad, doesn't it?

I kinda liked what they did with reducing all the live-oak leaves in the garden mulch, but also noticed that they seemed to like the brussles sprouts and kolorabi stems, too.

Thanks, katiebear - that is one funny 'read", too.

Now back to your regularly scheduled animal reproduction class.

The pill bug male is endowed with two reproductive organs and yet the female is capable of parthenogenesis!

Ok here is my 2 cents on educating us as to the sow and pill bugs..very similar yet they say different so here is the basic facts on them .....am looking further to find any other "juicy" info I can find too LOL


Sowbugs are land crustaceans which look very similar to pillbugs, at least at first glance. Sowbugs are small crustaceans with oval bodies when viewed from above. Their back consists of a number of overlapping, articulating plates. They have 7 pairs of legs, and antennae which reach about half the body length. Most are slate gray in color, and may reach about 15 mm long and 8 mm wide.

The pillbug on the other hand has a rounder back, from side to side, and a deeper body, from back to legs. When disturbed, it frequently rolls into a tight ball, with its legs tucked inside, much like its larger but dissimilar counterpart the armadillo.Pill Bugs


Sowbugs have gills which need constant moisture, so they tend to live in moister northwest climates. They are primarily nocturnal, and eat decaying leaf litter and vegetable matter. They may also feed on the tips of young plants, so can be considered pests, but they also help the environment by breaking up decaying plant matter and help speed up the recycling of the nutrients they contain.

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," "potato bug", "doodlebug", or the the more recent and increasingly popularized term, "roly-poly," which has been used regionally as early as 1968.[1] The most well known example 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.

"The pill bug male is endowed with two reproductive organs and yet the female is capable of parthenogenesis!"

Sounds like the guys need to work on their technique, so Mama Nature gave the girls another option while the guys are in training.

Only one species of sowbug here (oniscus asellus). I'm in for sowbug porn as they are great at breaking down my mulch and improving my clayey soil and total worker bees along with the heebie jeebie worms in my old fashioned hole in the ground compost. Thanks Zanymuse for starting a new thread.

I think that the guys are so busy comparing equipment, that the gals have no other choice......

mmmm I have pillbugs in my garden... will have to have a closer look....

now I know this, I feel like a peeping tom..... =)

Welcome to the villainous forum driven. You will learn way, way more about a lot of things than you thought you wanted to do. Especially bug porn.......LOL

pillbugs??? And I was still back on ladybugs........

I had pillbugs in Catonsville, maybe 15 miles away, in clayey soil, and sowbugs here on a sandy type soil.
Do you know how long I have held this tidbit, waiting for an audience that would appreciate it?

I had always thought of these bugs as foes in the garden and I guess in a small way they can be if they are eating tender seedlings. But for the most part they are friends that aid in cleaning up debris and breaking it down for us.

I remember searching for them as a kid. We would make them curl up and then see whos bug could roll down a board fastest or watch to see whos bug opened back up and tried to get away first. LOL we were easily amused then too!

doccat5 to funny again it is good no one is here but me the dogs and the worms LOL

I haven't seen any of the sow or pill bugs yet here but that doesn't mean they aren't around ....the fun and laughter here sure helps in making me look for info on the different things we have "touched" on and even at 47 I am learning new things on ways to help my gardening.

Even IF we get a lil porn or crude on the topics I do want to say Thank You to y'all for all the info it is truly helping me know what ways to go with our place here in Texas our first year.

Phyllis

Don't thank me, zany is the sicko on here. sheesh......ladybugs I can deal...not real er, excited about sow and pill bugs. Not a real appealing subject, thanks.......ewwwwwwwwh

LOL doccat, they are cute little things that live in the soil and are a part of the overall food chain. They are interesting and entertaining, much more so than I find the average humanoid to be (although people watching can be interesting as well...) but our mating habits have been so widely exploited in the media that there are no secrets left to be intriqued by anymore whereas the insects and bugs are usually more mysterious...with love bugs being the exception.

I notice their population exploded with the building of a compost pile and decreased almost as fast when the song birds discovered the pile. I also think that their population explosion is the reason Mr. Toad made his home in the back corner of the pile and is there now to croak away to me in the damp night air.

Dear Lord, I should point out that I don't do Toads real well either. You know the fat lady on the table the the cartoons, that would be moi! LOL They creep me out, and we have several good size one's that hang out here. As long as they stay on their end of the porch, it's all good.

I'm with you doccat, I've had to steel myself to kill all the (invasive) Cuban Tree frogs I find, but if Dad's around I make him do it. As for the toads, I don't tend to see them too much because they come out at night and during the day they bury themselves in the dirt. However, I was having a real problem with them jumping out of my potted plants when I would aim to move them or tend to the plant that was in it. Toads jumping out at you gets real old, real fast. I was on the patio one time when one jumped out and I screamed so loud the whole family came running!

Melanie

Ha! I can't even imagine being creeped out by a pudgy toad! They are so ugly their cute!

Worms are so much more warm and fuzzy! Not to mention barnacles and we all know how they are!

I agree with Zanymuse- Toads are cute! Pillbugs are cuter than sowbugs- It must be a roundness thing.....

Un huh, well you two diviy up who's going to write about which........LOL

The Cane Toads that were introduced to Florida are pretty heafty creatures.
http://www.floridagardener.com/critters/BufoMarinus.htm

We used to have one the size of a salad plate that would hang out in the bowl of water at the end of our air conditioner outflow pipe. My mom would have to push him out of the bowl to clean the pipe.

During full moon nights, we kids in the neighborhood would go out with flashlights and wheelbarrows, catch all the toads we could find, and them take them for a stroll around the yard/street with the wheel barrows serving as baby strollers for the toads. LOL! I have absolutely no idea where this game originated. The toad stroller derbies were very popular though. Wonder if we put a damper on toad romance or fired them up to reproduce more quickly?

When you let them go did you dump them all in one spot? You may have been providing them limo service to date night ;~) Some toads would think that was a pretty handy service to have!

Yes, we dumped them in the shrubbery.
Never a shortage of tadpoles in our yard.

I do admit to keeping "temporary" Toad housing in my gardens. I have several shallow dishes set out and add fresh water regularly. I just check real careful before I get close. Hmm, now we're into Toad porn?

ROFLMAO worms to pill to toads what a road to travel

When we moved here this last summer I was surprised one night when I went outside and found my driveway scattered with toads. I hollered at my son to come outside right away ..his nickname is toad as he always jumped from one thing to another when young (adhd) and teased him we were going to call it toads place since there were so many of his friends on the driveway.
He tried to scare me one night by bring on to me and I just laughed as I used to "collect" them as a kid with my brother when we were out camping.

I know spring is coming now though as the road I drive to work and back you see them jumping across the road in the early morning hours or late evening.

when our kids were younger, there was a toad living near the rainbarrels by the kitchen window.

the kids used to dig up and feed him earthworms..... their very own 'pet toad'..... toad was quite a size, too.

OMG! That's worm murder!!!! For shame!!!!

Well I just made a bunch of worms very happy. I'm getting ready to start my first vegetable garden (now that I've conquered the flowers, lol). I've built my raised beds and I've been composting lots of plant material, kitchen stuff, and Dad's woodworking remnants. Today I went to get a pickup truckload of composted horse manure mixed with pine shavings. It got so hot in the back of the truck the windows to the topper were all fogged up! I put some of in my compost bins, some into my raised beds where I mixed it with my other finished compost, and we still have a little pile of it next to my bins.

When I was digging my finished compost I saw lots of worms. In fact, I've been seeing some small worms so I think my worms are definitely "feeling the love" and making me more worms! And to think I used to consider them to be "icky". Now I'm so happy when I dig one up (I always cover them back up).

Melanie

Mr.Toad moved into my garden making himself at home
He feasted on pill bugs and marauding slugs
And hid by day under a garden gnome.

In the evenings I'd hear him croaking his low bass song
seeking a toad date with the hope they might mate
while he's was feeling virile, lusty and strong.

Lady Toad was so mightily impressed and pleased
by Mr. Toads song that she rushed right along
laying eggs in the ponds tall willowy reeds.

From the eggs there emerged cute little tadpoles.
Their tails they dropped , they grew legs and hopped
each seeking it's own cool damp spacious hole.

I just caught up with y'all again

I don't need to help my pillbugs reproduce- I need to give them some kind of birth control!

the little boogers get bored with eating decayed material in my garden and in the heat of summer will move on to new growth and seedlings. They scorn weeds and prefer expensive, prized and/or rare plants.

the only toads we have in S. Georgia are the native ones, I give them any and all encouragement that I can. I also love my little house wrens, they eat pillbugs and the much more disgusting "palmetto bugs"

BTW I also fight to keep a couple of "Charlottes" in my yard every year. My DH is NOT fond of eight legged critters but I dearly love the giant banana spiders that show up every year

Spiders are good except they like to build their webs across the trail right where I can walk into them when I hike. I learned to wear a hat real quick. I've got my own pest control in the backyard in the form of a sandhill crane that's been hanging out lately. They're dumb as rocks, but they eat a lot of bugs so they're ok with me.

Is there any entry in the Bug Files for this pillbug? I want to make sure I know what we're talking about.

Melanie

There is an entry http://davesgarden.com/guides/bf/go/147/

but it isn't very informative yet... maybe we should add our information to the bug files as we learn more about our garden companions?

Yes, everyone please add to the Bug Files. I raise butterflies so I've added lots of caterpillar and butterfly pics, but I don't know much about other kinds of bugs. I have to say though, I can't recall seeing anything like that sow bug before.

Melanie

Great idea! There doesn't seem to be too much in the bug files. Although that could be a good thing.

I'll have to get out and take some pictures of them if Toad has left any for me and write them up a bit. I kind of forget we have the bug files because they are not very helpful. But then, if we don't put stuff in it won't ever grow like the plant files are.

Very true, Zany. And bugs that are common in our area, may not be somewhere else.

I hesitate on bugfiles entries because I'm not sure about the exact species. I guess I should go to bug ID forumfirst and then enter it once confirmed. I think part of it is that people enjoy taking flower pictures more than bug pictures and flowers often come with an ID.
I'm making a mental note to work on my bug pictures.

Well, I hadn't thought about it, but for an organic gardener such as I am, I don't get too much in the way of bugs, but I think it would be a good idea to make sure the beneficials get added as well. I'll have to check through and see. I got no problem buying lady bugs, praying mantis, and wasps etc if needed. Haven't had to do that in a long time, but in the old days, yep.
That might be a good idea for an article. Beneficial insects and where to purchase......LOL

Interesting read.

I have many many what I have always called Pill bugs, or Roly Polys. But not in the compost pile area. they are in my raised beds. eating lettuce, radishes of whatever else is growing there. i wish they were gone far away. I keep my raised beds covered most of the spring with Remay cloth, first to keep the birds from eating the sprouting plants. Also to keep the cabbage butterflies out if I have cabbage or cauliflower growing there. I am an organic gardener. So I don't know how to rid my raised beds of the Pill bugs. I encourage any and all toads and frogs.

Donna