Common name
Status:
- GB IUCN status: Least Concern
- GB rarity status: Nationally Scarce
ID Difficulty
Identification
Our seven Armadillidium species and Eluma caelata (Family Armadillidiidae) are readily recognised in the field by their truncated 'square' uropods that end flush with the body and their ability to roll into a protective sphere (similar truncated uropods are also seen in the non-native Armadillidae species).
Armadillidium pictum is an attractively mottled pill-woodlouse (to 9 mm in body length). It shares its distinctive mottling and the dark patch on the 7th epimera with A. pulchellum (a smaller species). The shape of the male first pleopods in diagnostic, but females are more tricky. The common A. vulgare is never as attractively mottled, and lacks the dark patch on the 7th epimera.
A guide to identification of these three species is given by Gregory & Richards (2008).
