Pill Bugs
Do Pill Bugs Hurt My Yard And Garden?
Pill bugs, contrary to countless old myths and rumors to the contrary, are a harmless creature. The only plant materials that they prefer to eat are those which are rotting or decomposed, thus soft and easily palatable. You may find them munching on over-ripened tomatoes in your garden by the wee early hours, if they are late getting back to the cover of the moist dark territories. If you vine ripen your tomatoes, be sure to pick them before they weep or split open, as these conditions will call to the hungry little pill bugs out of the dark and into your garden. Aside from this one rare occurrence, humans have no call to worry over pill bugs or their infestation, and can live in harmony with them.
Another of the pill bugs favorite foods are spider eggs, and they venture under cover of night time darkness in search of these nutritious meals. It’s sort of like pill bug caviar, only not as salty and a little bit harder to procure. The pill bug protects himself from the wrath of adult spiders and centipedes by rolling his multi-sectioned armor into a tight, hard ball. This works quite well as a defense, and scientists believe that pill bugs also have a bitter taste which repels their natural enemies. So basically, pill bugs are a non-pest who actually helps the arachnophobes of the world by controlling the unborn population, and who have never bitten a human being during the entire history of time. Doesn’t sound like a bad deal to me at all.
Pill bugs, or roly-poly’s as I like to call them, are not bugs or insects at all, but land dwelling crustaceans. Adaptation to life on land has been a process some 4 million years in the making, and he is holding steady now with an even birth to death ratio. His lungs are at the rear of his body, between the sixth and seventh pairs of legs. He derives all of the internal moisture that he needs from his behind, and from there he even drinks water. He will back up to a small puddle of standing water, perhaps on a leaf or a rock after a rain shower, and dip his back end into it. The water then travels up a specialized networking of the hairs on his seven sets of legs until it reaches the mouth in minute droplets. It is thought that he would drown if he were to drink directly from the source.
The pill bugs’ most trusted and sure defense mechanism, his rolling technique, can also be the death of him should his adversary stick around for too long. His body is made to absorb moisture through his tender underside, and he needs almost constant re-hydration. Remaining in this tight little ball for too long can, and will, kill him.