What do YOU call these tiny land crustaceans?

Here in North Wiltshire, which borders Gloucestershire to the north, and Devon and Dorset to the south, my mum, and as a result, I call them Chucky pigs - I don’t recognise the term used that’s supposed to be the common name in my home county in the list.
As regards the flavour, possibly cooked with a suitable amount of strong seasoning might make a difference - maybe some Carolina Reaper chillies… :wink:

1 Like

Roly-Poly or Pill Bug for me. the soft ones that can’t roll up, we called Sow Bugs. also Wood Lice. i always wondered if the softer ones were younger versions of the ones that can roll up. i find them all super cute, and i will not squish them.

3 Likes

I’m guessing it’s because in England, cheese is for rolling.

5 Likes

Some people call dolphinfish “dolphins” for short. Which sometimes leads to confusion, as in the insignia for USN submariners.

1 Like

So bugs have sucking mouth parts, eh? Well, then [insert crude, insensitive, sexist joke about compaing girlfriend to insects], oh yeah!

Yeah, but notice how nobody bothers to say “true fish”, and yet your link still says “true bugs” rather than bugs and notes many insects commonly called bugs belong elsewhere?

Of course many things that aren’t true bugs are called “bugs”, colloquially. And among insects, it isn’t all that big of a phylogenetic error. But I think there is there is a real error that should be corrected when lay people (which as you note many do) call arachnids and crustaceans “bugs” because they really are very different sorts of organisms. Invertebrates have a lot of biodiversity and we should should encourage laypeople who normally only care about biodiversity among cuddly mammals to care.

“Menace”?!
Screw you Plymouth and Devon! Roly-Polys only infest with love!

1 Like

I mean, we already have the words arachnids, crustaceans, insects, and for that matter Hemiptera when you want to talk about those. But what’s wrong with having a word for all of them together? It trust you’d allow that it’s ok to say “arthropod”, so why on earth would having a word for terrestrially-adapted (or secondarily freshwater) arthropods be misleading?

The only reason I can think of is that unlike the even broader term arthropod, it’s not a clade. Because there seems to be this trend to imagine that words that actually describe the organisms in question must be meaningless – things like fish or prokaryote – because all that matters in biology is where things show up on phylogenetic trees. I trust you don’t believe that, considering you said that whales are not actually lobe-finned fish, despite being part of the clade Sarcopterygii.

4 Likes

The females give “live birth” to their young. When I was little, I picked one up and turned it over. The membrane on the abdomen split and out skittered a thousand milk white young over my hands.

I call them Nightmare Fuel.

2 Likes

I agree: if it’s got antennae and segmented legs, it’s a bug. That extends to shrimp/lobster for me. If you’ll suck the insides out of a creature as grotesque as a shrimp, but not return the favor for a grasshopper or a roach, you’re deceiving yourself.

Also relevant:
1kg7716dprkz

6 Likes

I haven’t sucked the insides of a grasshopper or roach, and have no plans to … ever, but I would imagine the flavor is different than shrimp and lobster, both of which are yummy. I’m ok with calling shrimp, lobster, and crabs bugs. That won’t make me stop eating them. It also won’t make me start eating grasshoppers and roaches.

7 Likes

Fair enough. I just think they’re all gross, and no one understands me when I turn down an offering of their bugs!

The aquatic ones are of particular importance to fly fishers, as scuds are an important trout food source. And when we tie up imitations of scuds, we still call them “flies.” :slight_smile:

4 Likes

A crustacean that hasn’t evolved into a crab-like form? What’s wrong with them??

5 Likes

Fair enough. We don’t all have to like the same things. I happen to find peaches particularly disgusting, and I have yet to find anyone who shares my opinion.

2 Likes

Not that arachnids like spiders and scorpions have antennae though. :sweat_smile:

Definitely different. How things taste has a lot less to do with what lineage they belong to than how they live and are built. For instance, a lot of small animals are said to taste like chicken, but ostriches don’t…because despite being birds, their size goes with muscles more like you find in large mammals.

Things like shrimp and lobster are aquatic and have muscular bodies used to swim, whereas things like grasshoppers and cockroaches are terrestrial and mostly filled with organs. I’m not personally interested in eating either but that’s plainly going to make a lot of difference.

Those are amphipods. They’re closely related to isopods…you can see for instance both of them are missing the stalked eyes found in other groups like decapods and krill. But as per their name the body has two sorts of appendages, walking legs near the front and paddle-like pleopods near the back, whereas isopods are named for having all legs basically the same. :slight_smile:

9 Likes

This Australian can confirm “slater”.

3 Likes

It’s debatable.

3 Likes

Same, but So. Cal. also, “nino de la tierra” which at least makes a bit more sense.

3 Likes