Isopod - Platyarthrus hoffmannseggii

Moved

Moved from Isopods. We made the page as indicated. Click on the Info tab and check that it is ok.

… john and jane balaban, 14 June, 2007 - 7:33am

Ant woodlouse

I found several references on the web which give it a common name, Ant woodlouse.

… Steve Nanz, 15 June, 2007 - 3:18am

Some more data

Just to be precise with my previous comment (and because it is a new taxon on bugguide.net) I add the taxonomic classification of this species, however it is not very complicated:

Crinochaeta: family Platyarthridae
Genus: Platyarthrus Brandt, 1833
species: hoffmannseggii Brandt, 1833

Synonimies: Itea crassicornis, P. dollfusi, Typhloniscus steinii

Ferenc

… Ferenc Vilisics, 14 June, 2007 - 1:31am

Hi! It is a nice catch! [i]

Hi! It is a nice catch!
[i]Platyarthrus hoffmannseggii[i] is a myrmecophylous isopod, which means it lives in ant nests. Blind and it is not clear why ants don't eat them. It's not the only species from the Platyarthrhus genus, but [i]hoffmannseggi[i] is the most frequent world-wide.
Best wishes,
Ferenc

… Ferenc Vilisics, 11 June, 2007 - 11:05am

Oniscus asellus

Looks like immature Oniscus asellus. However, they could be Porcellio spinicornis. Either way they are immatures.

On these immatures I'm not qualified enough to determine which, so it's probably best to move them to the Oniscidea page and perhaps an Isopod expert can weigh in. Nice image.

… Jason D. Roberts, 18 May, 2007 - 10:50am

Platyarthrus hoffmannseggi?

I thought it might be an immature but then a couple weeks back I found an Oniscidea key at http://webs.lander.edu/rsfox/invertebrates/armadillidium.html which mentions the antennae as crucial to an ID. This critter didn't match. I checked the key again this morning but their server is off-line. I kept looking around and stumbled on images of a European species, Platyarthrus hoffmannseggi. It seems to match perfectly.

… Steve Nanz, 23 May, 2007 - 4:16am

Yeah

That's definitely a spot-on match, I just wasn't aware of Platyarthrus hoffmannseggi being in NA. But the morphology is certainly convincing.

… Jason D. Roberts, 23 May, 2007 - 5:21am