Pillbug Habitat Preference

Pillbug Habitat Preference

Rollie Pollies, also known as pillbugs, are closely related to shrimp and crayfish. The pillbugs use gills to breathe, and require moist areas to breathe, though they can't survive in submerged. Weird huh? Pillbugs shed their cuticle as well. But not all at once. If you ever see a pillbug that is grey or brown on one end, and pink on the other end, then it is in the middle of molting. While doing this expirement a question had occurred, "Do pillbugs pee??" Turns out they don't! Pillbugs pass this gas through their exoskeleton called ammonia gas. Pillbugs also eat their own poop. Yummy!! The reason for this appetizing themselves with their own feces is because when they poop, they lose an essential element called copper, this behavior is Coprograhpy. Pillbugs show an example of taxis and kinesis too. For example, taxis is when an organism moves towards a stimulus, if it moves away it's negative taxis. Kenisis is when the organisms moves away it's negative taxis. Kenisis is when the organisms prefers to be in a specific favorable environment. This leads to the purpose of this magnificent lab. Pillbugs seem to be a good experimental bug to test where they prefer to live.

Pillbugs enjoy to be in a moist and food supplying environment, and usually with other insects. Therefore, as a lab experiment, the pillbugs were put into a five chamber section, al with different surroundings and objects. For example twenty pillbugs were selected from a garden, put into the center of the chamber, which consisted of just staying there, or going to other chambers. Two of the pillbugs chambers had soil in them, one had bark, one had grass and the control chamber consisted of only soil and the last one had only moss. The hypothesis for this experiment would be that the pillbugs would enjoy to be in a mossy environment and with food.