Woodlouse stores heavy metals, boasts 300+ nicknames
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- The woodlouse has acquired more than 300 regional names in Britain alone, including the Welsh "Gwrach y Coed" ("witch of the wood") and English nicknames like chucky pig, slater, and boat-builder, with the ball-rolling behavior formally called conglobation or volvation.
- Woodlouse ancestors moved onto land roughly 500 million years ago, long before most animals, and the suborder now contains about 5,000 species, including the globally distributed common rough woodlouse (Porcellio scaber).
- As a detritivore, the woodlouse feeds on rotting plant matter and breaks down wood; reader Sally Roe described how woodlice reduced a solid bamboo countertop offcut left in her garden to a "paper-light wood honeycomb," demonstrating how invertebrates drive biodegradation.
- The woodlouse can withstand toxic pollution and store heavy metals within special compartments in its body, with the article citing studies showing it can help stabilize heavy metals in compost.
- The Guardian is running its "Invertebrate of the Year" contest from August 3–12, with daily profiles of reader-nominated invertebrates before voting opens, and readers like Chris Pickard arguing the woodlouse "will undoubtedly be here long after humans have followed dinosaurs and dodos into the extinct category."
Why it matters: The woodlouse's ability to sequester heavy metals in compost gives a familiar backyard creature a concrete, if under-recognized, role in pollution remediation, while its 500-million-year land tenure suggests a resilience that outlasts humanity. The Guardian's reader-driven contest is also a small referendum on which overlooked invertebrates deserve public attention — a pitch that doubles as a recruitment nudge for invertebrate appreciation.
