Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 61, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 March 1917 — Misnamed Crustacean. [ARTICLE]

Misnamed Crustacean.

Everyone has seen the curious, little flat gray creatures that scufTy out of sight when you lift a decayed log or a moss-covered, stone in the woods or near the water. They are th? Armadlllldia, or Isopods of tlft* genus Oniscoideaj commonly called the armadillo, sow bug and pill bug. They are really not bugs at all, but. crustaceans or distant relatives of the crab, with gills provided with air tubes not unlike the air tubes through which insects breathe all over their body. A favorite food of frogs, toads and salamanders, the pill bug Itself subsists largely on decaying vegetable matter, and some’believe it to be a useful ger. According to the Zoological SoctetytruttetlHrWßliHme armadillo was given it because of its habit when dis.tarbed df Tolllng ltself UP into a ball, as the mammal of South America does; but the crustacean is shrewder than the mammal, for, whereas the armadillo never uncoils, when it is caught or frightened,—and therefore its shell often serves as its own roasting pan in the ovens of equatorial itself up once or twice and discovering that it is still in the presence of danger, will give up the useless stratagem and try to make off unnoticed. — Youth’s Companion.