Agabiformius lentus (Budde-Lund, 1885)

Status:

GB IUCN status: Not applicable (non-native)

ID Difficulty

Identification

Agabiformius lentus is a small brownish woodlouse reaching 6 mm body length. The body bears feeble tubercles, with pale background colour and three ill-defined darker stripes running the entire length of the body. It is reminiscent of an immature Porcellio scaber, from which it is differentiated by the shape of the head lobes and the highly arched body. Male first pleopod with highly characteristic exopod.

A brief description of this species, with figures, is given in Gregory (2014).

Steve Gregory
Steve Gregory
Steve Gregory
Steve Gregory

Distribution and Habitat

Once considered Britain’s most widespread glasshouse alien, the only recent record is from the Eden Project, Cornwall, where three specimens were collected from the Rainforest Biome in 2009 (Gregory, 2014). In 2020 a female was found in the Mediterranean Biome. 

This species originates from the Mediterranean coasts, but has been widely introduced to many other parts of the world.

References

Gregory, S. (2014) Woodlice (Isopoda: Oniscidea) from Eden Project, Cornwall, with descriptions of species new to Britain, and poorly known British species. Bulletin of the British Myriapod & Isopod Group 27: 3-26. 

BRC code

82

idBmigTaxa

Cru_1042