Question...HELP

[Joe Kunkel]

Daisy,

Your son may be interested in a Pill Bug also called a Sow Bug or a
Ballie Bug in my neighborhood.  They are terrestrial isopods, a type of
crustacean that is dorso-ventrally flattened.  The majority of isopods
are marine but during evolutionary time a branch landed and developed a
terrestrial life style.

http://www.uoguelph.ca/zoology/great_lakes/isopods/intro.htm

You can pursue the topic at the Tree of Life page, where Isopoda is no
longer evident due to rearrangements in how biologists think the
crustacea evolved:

http://phylogeny.arizona.edu/tree/eukaryotes/animals/arthropoda/crustacea/crustacea.html

Great Lakes Isopods:

http://www.uoguelph.ca/zoology/great_lakes/isopods/

Australian Isopods:

http://www-personal.usyd.edu.au/~buz/popular.html

Enjoy searching the WWW on Isopods.  I got about 973 hits with a simple
Alta Vista search on Isopoda.

Joe


Daisy wrote:
> 
> My son is looking for information on a particular insect......kids call it a
> "rollie pollie" can anyone tell me the real name of this insect?  thanks!
> 
> Daisy

-- 
--------------------
Joseph G. Kunkel, Professor
Biology Department             joe at bio.umass.edu
University of Massachusetts    http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/kunkel
Amherst MA 01003