June 2011. The miniature armadillo that banishes boredom.

Yesterday on satellite radio, a singer warbled a ditty recorded by Bob Wills: “Roly Poly, Daddy’s little fattie....” Quite the droll roly poly coincidence since I was teetering on the brink of an article on my childhood buddy bug. Living in the country without nearby playmates, my sister and I turned to nature’s children. The whimsical roly poly filled the niche nicely. He doesn’t bite, sting, spit, gnaw on clothes or make a mess and is amiable except when fear prompts his rolling up in a tight, hard ball. We created adventures for Marco Poly, who stalwartly marched over mountains we put in his path and maneuvered through wicked labyrinths, but the most entertaining past time was the Roly Poly Derby, complete with mini racetrack where competitors raced to a cheering crowd of two urging entries to the finish line, which was rarely crossed unless impatience provoked intervention called cheating.

Little did we know how bizarre Mr. R. P. is. He isn’t even an insect as we assumed because he has lots of little legs, mucks around in dirt and leaves, and hides under rocks like many insects. He’s actually a crustacean and breathes through gills. Think shrimp, crabs, crawfish; they’re his aquatic cousins. I haven’t tried cooking with roly polies, but I’d wager they’re not good in gumbo or boiled in Cajun seasoning, and I’ll bet they’re a pain to peel.

The terrestrial crustacean goes by many clever aliases which I’ll take the liberty of using randomly. He answers to the names pill bug, woodlouse, sow bug, chuggy pig, doodlebug, and armadillo bug, the last derived from his family classification Armadillidiiae, and I promise that’s not misspelled. Now think mini armadillo.  Both armadillo and armadillo bug have hard shells, like M & M’s but not chocolate, and the South American armadillo rolls up roly poly style if provoked. There similarity ends, and if you want to be picky, you could point out that the pill bug shell is an exoskeleton made of chitin and no, that isn’t chitlins, while the armadillo shell is derma bone and scales.

Pill bug bodies consist of a head with mouth, eyes, and two pair of antennae, a seven-segmented thorax each equipped with a pair of jointed legs, and “uropods” at the posterior.  Females have marsupial pouches (think kangaroo) on the underside where they carry their eggs as if in a basket (think Easter Bunny). After the eggs hatch, the itty bitty babies stay in the pouch for several days then venture out into the world at the same time, making it appear that Mom is giving birth. As juveniles grow and clothes get too tight, they molt in two stages, the back molting first and the front following two to three days later. Often front and back are different colors at molting times, creating a stunning outfit of pink and gray.

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