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Woodlouse Parental Care

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HAPPY NEW YEAR! A first for me.. Woodlouse carrying her babies! Taken at night in Singapore.

Quote from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodlous…
The woodlouse has a shell-like exoskeleton, which it must progressively shed as it grows. The moult takes place in two stages; the back half is lost first, followed two or three days later by the front. This method of moulting is different from that of most arthropods, which shed their cuticle in a single process.

A female woodlouse will keep fertilised eggs in a marsupium on the underside of her body until they hatch into offspring that look like small white woodlice curled up in balls. The mother then appears to "give birth" to her offspring. Females are also capable of reproducing asexually.[citation needed] [24]

Despite being crustaceans like lobsters or crabs, woodlice are said to have an unpleasant taste similar to "strong urine".

Living in a terrestrial environment[clarification needed], woodlice breathe through trachea-like lungs in their paddle-shaped hind legs (pleopods), called pleopodal lungs. Woodlice need moisture because they rapidly lose water by excretion and through their cuticle, and so are usually found in damp, dark places, such as under rocks and logs, although one species, Hemilepistus reaumuri, inhabits "the driest habitat conquered by any species of crustacean".[which?][26] They are usually nocturnal and are detritivores, feeding mostly on dead plant matter.

A few woodlice have returned to water. Evolutionary ancient species are amphibious, such as the marine-intertidal sea slater (Ligia oceanica), which belongs to family Ligiidae. Other examples include some Haloniscus species from Australia (family Scyphacidae), and in the northern hemisphere several species of Trichoniscidae and Thailandoniscus annae (family Styloniscidae). Species for which aquatic life is assumed include Typhlotricholigoides aquaticus (Mexico) and Cantabroniscus primitivus (Spain).[27]

Woodlice are eaten by a wide range of insectivores, and some animals are known to prey exclusively on woodlice, for example, spiders of the genus Dysdera, such as the woodlouse spider Dysdera crocata,[19] and land planarians of the genus Luteostriata, such as Luteostriata abundans.[28]
Image size
1600x1067px 758.21 KB
Make
Canon
Model
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Shutter Speed
1/160 second
Aperture
F/16.0
Focal Length
100 mm
ISO Speed
100
Date Taken
Dec 29, 2017, 9:51:26 PM
Sensor Size
10mm
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Comments18
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TheGhoulAvenue's avatar
I've never seen an isopod mum carry her young on her back before, that's awesome!