Isopoda is an order of crustaceans. Members of this group are called isopods and include both aquatic species, and terrestrial species such as woodlice. All have rigid, segmented exoskeletons, two pairs of antennae, seven pairs of jointed limbs on the thorax, and five pairs of branching appendages on the abdomen that are used in respiration. Females brood their young in a pouch under their thorax called the marsupium.
Armadillidium vulgare, the common pill-bug, potato bug, common pill woodlouse, roly-poly, slater, doodle bug, or carpenter, is a widespread European species of woodlouse. It is the most extensively investigated terrestrial isopod species. It is native to Mediterranean Europe, but as an introduced species they have become naturalized in almost all suitable ecosystems. They are kept as pets by hobbyists for their wide range of possible color variations.
Eleoniscus is a genus of the small terrestrial crustaceans known as woodlice. It includes one species, Eleoniscus helenae, which is endemic to Alicante province, Spain, where it is known from two caves. It may have been extirpated from one of the two caves through the increasing urbanisation of the Macizo de Montgó.
Trichoniscidae are a family of isopods (woodlice), including the most abundant British woodlouse, Trichoniscus pusillus. Most species of woodlice that have returned to an aquatic or amphibian way of life belong to this family. Several species from the following genera live in water and on land: Titanethes, Cyphonetes, Alpioniscus, Scotoniscus, Bureschia, Brackenridgia, Mexiconiscus, Trichoniscoides, Cretoniscellus, Balearonethes and Cyphoniscellus.
Woodlice or roly-polies, are terrestrial isopods in the suborder Oniscidea. Their name is derived from being often found in old wood, and from louse, a parasitic insect, although woodlice are neither parasitic nor insects.
Trichoniscus pusillus, sometimes called the common pygmy woodlouse, is one of the five most common species of woodlice in the British Isles. It is acknowledged to be the most abundant terrestrial isopod in Britain. It is found commonly across Europe north of the Alps, and has been introduced to Madeira, the Azores and North America.
Androniscus dentiger, the rosy woodlouse or pink woodlouse is a species of woodlouse found from the British Isles to North Africa.
Armadillidium pictum is a species of woodlouse which occurs over most of Europe, except the Mediterranean Basin and Southeast Europe. In the British Isles, it is only known from a few sites, making it by some accounts, "Britain's rarest woodlouse". Since these sites are all remote from human habitation, in Cumbria and Powys, the species is thought to be native rather than introduced.
Pseudarmadillo is a genus of woodlice from the Greater Antilles. All extant species live in Cuba, with one species also extending to the Bahamas:
Hemilepistus reaumuri is a species of woodlouse or isopod that lives in and around the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East, "the driest habitat conquered by any species of crustacean, not including insects which are now known to be crustaceans pancrustacea". It reaches a length of 22 mm (0.87 in) and a width of up to 12 mm (0.47 in), and has seven pairs of legs which hold its body unusually high off the ground. The species was described in the Description de l'Égypte after the French Campaign in Egypt and Syria of 1798–1801, but was first formally named by Henri Milne-Edwards in 1840 as Porcellio reaumuri. It reached its current scientific name in 1930 after the former subgenus Hemilepistus was raised to the rank of genus.
Hemilepistus is a genus of woodlice, created by G. H. A. Budde-Lund in 1879 as a subgenus of Porcellio, but raised to the rank of genus by Karl Wilhelm Verhoeff in 1930. It contains the following species:
Armadillidium klugii is a lesser-known, rare Balkan, Dalmatia-based species of woodlouse, most distinguished by its colouration which resembles the red markings of the Mediterranean black widow Latrodectus tredecimguttatus. This is probably a kind of mimicry, to ward off predators that mistake the harmless animal for a venomous spider.
Armadillidium nasatum, the nosy pill woodlouse, is a large, Western European-based species of woodlouse that has been introduced to North America, along with Armadillidium vulgare also found in other parts of Europe.
Helleria brevicornis, the sole species of the monotypic genus Helleria, is a terrestrial woodlouse endemic to the islands and coastal regions of the northern Tyrrhenian sea. H. brevicornis is of interest due to its endemism, unique ecology and basal position in the suborder Oniscidea.
Iridovirus armadillidium1, known formerly as Invertebrate iridescent virus 31 (IIV-31) and informally as isopod iridovirus, is a species of invertebrate iridescent virus in the genus Iridovirus. Oniscidea serve as hosts. Infection is associated with decreased responsiveness in the host, increased mortality and the emergence of an iridescent blue or bluish-purple colour due to the reflection of light off a paracrystalline arrangement of virions within the tissues.
Hyloniscus is a genus of woodlice belonging to the family Trichoniscidae. Its members are found across Europe and North America.
Trichorhina aethiopica is a species of woodlouse, originally described by A. Arcangeli in 1941. It is reported to be distributed on the banks of Caschei River in Ethiopia.
Trichorhina amazonica is a species of woodlouse, distributed throughout North-Eastern Brazil.
Trichorhina argentina is a species of woodlouse found in southern Brazil and central eastern Argentina. It can be found living synantropically under stones or leaves.
Paraplatyarthrus australiensis is a species of woodlouse found in Western Australia. It was originally described in genus Trichorhina.
