P.scaber identification features

Porcellio scaber

The features on the diagram and notes below may help you to identify if your woodlouse is a Porcellio scaber or some other species of woodlouse.

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P.scaber cannot roll into a ball. When it is disturbed it tends to quickly run away.

Head "crown" shaped - the outer lobes being rounded

There are two pairs of projections on the uropods although the inner pair are much smaller.

The posterior end of the plates of the exoskelton (pereiopods and pleonites) tend to come to a sharp point rather than being rounded.

Two pairs of pleopod lungs

The outer margin of the plates of the exoskeleton are slightly reverse curved in the upward direction - see picture at right (legs incomplete)

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