Bugs of the Bituminous Region
Springers found a little praying mantis in the bathroom yesterday. He bravely caught it in a cup and deposited it outside. We watched it follow a potato bug with its sharp triangular head but I think it was too stressed out to pounce.
Cleo, on the other hand, was not too stressed out to pounce upon a hapless moth that had fluttered into the living room two nights ago. Springy put the moth out of its misery eventually, as Cleo was enjoying tormenting/playing with it.
I thought the mantis was cute. Springy thought it was the personification (insectification?) of evil.
Potato bugs are unequivocally cute, though. Hmmm, it seems that what we Pittsburghers call a "potato bug" everyone else in the world calls a "pill woodlouse". Apparently, a potato bug is something else entirely (and not cute at all). Interesting.
posted by Joolya at
9:39 AM
5 Comments:
really? huh. i always thought everyone called 'em potato bugs. me and brookburg used to throw them down the slip 'n slide in my dad's back yard and watch them curl up in to little balls.
is that weird?
Awww!
I *love* mantids. I think they make fantastic pets. They get used to humans quickly; we're too big for them to eat, and if we don't do anything overtly threatening towards them, we just become "furniture". Like we are for cats. And then they sit on you and just use you for a lookout point to look for things to eat. The only disconcerting thing is that they aim for the highest ground, so they like sitting on heads; they can be trained to sit on shoulders, instead, but then they tend to grab your ear for balance if you move too quickly, and that can be painful.
They're way cool to watch; because they have highly mobile necks and "pseudopupils" in their eyes, you can tell what they are watching, and its amazing what insight that gives you into their little insect minds. You can track what they're tracking. I
Little, green six-legged cats, I tell you.
And, yes -- those are woodlice, although I've heard them called "pill bugs" or "sow bugs", as well. This is a potato bug. Note that they are seriously nothing at all alike....
I like woodlice, too; they ARE cute! (I'm glad someone besides me thinks that...I really am.) If there were any way possible to make a living studying miniature ecosystems (i.e. mosses and isopoda) I'd be in there, but there doesn't seem to be much going on in this corner of the world in that field.
A better link for Potato Bugs:
http://www.whatsthatbug.com/potato.html
we say potato bug in utah as well!
we always called them pill bugs....and rolly-pollys when we were kids. I love them, and think they are cute as well.
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