Fun Fact: some “pill bugs” are crustaceans. Others... are not
When I was around 12, a friend of mine told me that “potato bugs” (which is what we called these^ dudes where I grew up) weren’t actually bugs.
“They’re crustaceans,” she said, gleefully handing me a few. “Like crabs.”
This was shocking and delightful to me, and I carefully stored this fun fact away in the part of my brain used for exactly these sorts of fun facts. (I don’t remember where I stored the potato bugs she handed me, but my mom probably made me put them back in the garden).
Later, I learned that, while this is true, it wasn’t the whole story. It was true that some “potato bugs” (aka “pill bugs”) are terrestrial crustaceans. But there was another kind as well, living side-by-side with our funky little crustaceans, looking much the same
The crustacean pill bugs that my friend was talking about are members of the family Armadillidae. The second group are a type of millipede, which we group together into the order Oniscomorpha. Here’s a comparison:
pretty similar, right? Which is why it’s interesting that these guys aren’t closely related at all. (Also, I would like to voice my support of using the word “bug” to mean “terrestrial invertebrate”. Prescriptivist language is silly, and I say that spiders can be called “bugs” because that’s what people often call them. Hemipterans, don’t @ me with your “True Bug” claims 😉).
This is an excellent example of convergent evolution, in which two groups of organisms adapt to similar environments in similar ways, even though they’re not closely related. These two buggos both like to live under things, such as rocks, rotting logs, leaf litter, and paving stones, where they eat decomposing organic matter and generally live their best lives.
Clearly, this design was very well-suited for this way of life!
(This meme is deeply incorrect, but I thought it was funny. 1. they objectively came to the same design independently, bc evolution doesn’t copy homework (except with horizontal gene transfer but that’s a whole OTHER tangent) 2. I don’t actually know who came first. They both appeared in in Carboniferous period at least 300 million years ago, but that is a RANGE OF TIME, so 🤷♂️. )
And it doesn’t stop there! I guess the “armour on back, curl up when spooked” design is pretty popular in the tree of life!
This has been fun fact friday keeping you updated on the latest trends, all the way from the Carboniferous period!!
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