Plum woodlouse
The plum woodlouse is a little armoured crawler with 14 legs. It is not an insect at all but a tiny land cousin of crabs and shrimps. It loves damp places and tidies up by eating dead plant bits.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
People keep it as a pet because it is easy to look after.
Breeders have made many colours of it, with fun names like Orange, Powder Blue and Oreo Crumble.
In the wild it lives about one year, but as a pet it can live two or three years.
It has babies quickly, so it is also raised as food for pet lizards and frogs.
Most asked questions about Plum woodlouse
?Is the plum woodlouse an insect?
No. It is a crustacean, a small land relative of crabs and shrimps, and it has 14 legs.
?What does the plum woodlouse eat?
Dead and rotting plant material, like old leaves.
?How long does a plum woodlouse live?
About a year in the wild and two or three years as a pet.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Porcellionides pruinosus
- Group
- Woodlice
- Family
- Porcellionidae
- Classification
- Malacostraca > Isopoda > Porcellionidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Australia and Oceania
Where the facts come from
- Porcellionides pruinosus (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by xpda. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.
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