Common Rough Woodlouse

Porcellio scaber

This woodlouse is narrower than the Common Shiny Woodlouse (Oniscus asellus), and greyer, although it can also appear mottled and lighter in colour. It has a rough surface, covered in tiny bumps, The end of the antennae (flagellum) is in two segments. Length 10mm.

After dark they forage for dead organic matter.

Seen all year round. Found in a wide variety of habitats, including woodland, hedgerows, waste ground, and quite numerous in gardens. They shelter under rocks or stones, rotting logs or plant detritus. This woodlouse may also be found inside dwellings, and can withstand more drier conditions compared to other species of woodlice. Probably the most common woodlouse found in Britain. Common and widespread throughout.

Photographs taken March and April 2014, rear garden, found under rotting log, Staffordshire

Advertisement

Your thoughts ...

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.