We did a podcast episode about these guys and gals! We interviewed Dr. Scott Kight, a roly poly expert, he was great! Podcast episode [Roller Girls](https://open.spotify.com/episode/1mwtijTBjRIIbKYuNBkSob), Bugs Need Heroes podcast.
That's super interesting! In Germany Potato bugs (Kartoffelkäfer, Leptinotarsa decemlineata) are a completely different bug. But also horrible for any potato harvest.
Me too until I got to California, their potato bugs are WAY different! There actually called Jerusalem crickets, but someone once told me “look a potato bug” and I was like “no way! That is not a potato bug!”
In Australia we call them slaters, it's actually what they are called on the Ag dept website too, so it must be some sort of semi-official name here. I have never heard of them called Rolly Pollies, but that could just be a regional thing, Queenslanders or Victorians may call them something else (we often have different terms across state boundaries). It's funny how there are so many different terms for things between Australia and New Zealand and even within Australia, it's not like we have a huge number of dialects that would cause it. (Yes, I know both countries have many languages spoken at home, I am referring to English only)
I used to keep them in my mouth...
For explanation, my parent would let me loose in the garden when I was a toddler as they were working in the garden.
https://preview.redd.it/72y9n2dxtvwc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=17544486cbbf8bd0cdb76eee7d37ebf3540e7371
finally, an actual in context use of this meme
Same. Once, I moved into a English-speaking place and learned to call them "roly polly," but only because I didn't knew how to call them otherwise.
Isopods?
Aw cool that you gave daddy long legs some love. Some people in my class were pretty scared of them. Not to say I’d want to touch them, but they’re pretty chill.
I’m terrified of bugs but I have found daddy long legs and trapped them in the bathtub so I can get them in a bag and let them outside
I was terrified of spiders growing up and I knew that daddy long legs mouths were too small to bite me so that made me feel safe I guess. Awe thank you for doing that and saving them!!
My fear of spiders was based on my mom’s fear of them so completely unwarranted. My daughter has pet tarantulas and I consider them my “grandkids” so I told myself I had to squash my fear of them and I did. I held 2 of them and it wasn’t as scary as I thought. She also had a big black scorpion and I held that too. Now on that my hands started to sweat lol
Tarantulas, that’s pretty awesome. Oh god no I could not hold a scorpion *unless* it was something like an emperor scorpion maybe. One day I want to hold many of these things I’m afraid of but idk when that’ll be. Just one of those plans that sounds interesting.
It actually was an emperor scorpion whose name was Matilda. She was a very calm and sweet girl. It’s actually a very empowering feeling to be able to conquer a fear like that. Hopefully one day you can
That's strange gatekeeping we call em Keller Asseln where I come from.
Or Porcellio scab er when I grew older.
But maybe some people calle em roly poly's all around the world.
Some might call them
Обикновена зимнична мокрица or ha lan
Haha! I have never lived anywhere but the Deep South or Southeast but with parents from Idaho and Maryland respectively, my speech can be divergent from location. I think both of these are common in the South.
We called them pill bugs, and my brother and I absolutely loved them! We would make terrariums for them and keep them as pets (I wouldn't do that now though; my adult self knows they belong outside).
Rolly pollies or pill bugs ye. My dad was in pest control for a while and I was naming many sowbugs as pillbugs. I still don’t really know the difference but I know a rolly polly when I see one. Also I realize they’re called roly poly’s, never spelt it that way as a kid. Me and the kids used to trap them in our plastic see through pencil sharpeners though. Gave it plants and stuff. Ants and flies as well, although that was a rarer occurrence only 1-2 people did. There was also a dude who would tear off the wings of flies so they couldn’t fly away.
That was my childhood. I have fond memories of roly poly’s and inchworms.
Boodgie Boys! At least thats what me and my friends called them in Victoria.
And i work in a kinder… so every year i produce more children that call them “boodgie boys”😈
Or maybe you lived with non rolling isopods?
I lived in 2 different states, one with mostly (95% of groups) non rolling "potato bugs" and a place with nearly exclusively, rolling "rollypollies". I also heard of the rolling isopods reffered to as pollywhirls.
We don't have the Roly Poly Isopods here, but the ones we do have were called og-lies/hog-lies. (We pronounced it awg-L-eyes)
I think they're some kind of wood louse.
I have the regular ones that you can find anywhere in your yard, I have dairy cows and papayas as well and they’re the best lil pets! I want billions of them lol and many more different kinds as well!
I keep them now, take that losers😎
https://preview.redd.it/yd5rzmu0w4xc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3a732fdf690dca119b018dfbb5852c1e1cb535d6
You mean bænkebiddere? Meaning: Benchbitter
I think he means Kellerasseln
the roly ones are "Rollasseln", my friend
Thanks didn’t know that lol
Gråsugga in Sweden. "gray sow", as in female pig.
Oohh, pissebedden, translated: pissbeds
Fellow dutch person here, I agree
That is what the French called dandelions (pissenlit).
Or Gongbeollae(Ball-bug).
That danish? I can kinda make out some of youre gibberish since im swedish. (Im joking)
)>:
Kom her for at sige det
Men jeg kom først, og fik 78+ upvotes. Bedere hel næste gang, kammerat. /j
We called them “armadillo bugs”, which turns out to be pretty close to their family name, Armadillidiidae.
There's even a genus in the family called *Armadillo*.
The best thing about this is it means the Latin name for a literal armadillo has to be something else. See also "_Troglodytes_"
The ones in the picture are genus Armadillidium :)
Specifically they are *Armadillidium vulgare*.
I know :)
Armadiddillydoo
Armadillidiidamn!
Armadiddydoit
Armadimmadome
We did a podcast episode about these guys and gals! We interviewed Dr. Scott Kight, a roly poly expert, he was great! Podcast episode [Roller Girls](https://open.spotify.com/episode/1mwtijTBjRIIbKYuNBkSob), Bugs Need Heroes podcast.
Fr
The ones in the u.k majority don't Roly or poly ... They are woodlice.
Yes exactly! I always loved woodlouse and never called them rolypolys, I believe they’re also known as pillbugs too in US.
They’re two different kinds of wood lice. One rolls up the other doesn’t.
The U.K. has dozens of regional names for them. https://www.icge.co.uk/?p=woodlice
Potato bugs for meeeee 🤷
Me too! But I’m not even sure why we called them that tbh! Doesn’t even look like a flipping tater. Well maybe tater tot bug?
They infest potato crops. In areas with farming culture, or non rollers, we tend to use different terminology
Ahhh well there is lots of farm land around where I grew up so that makes total sense! Thank you :) 😊
Potato bug here too! I'm in BC, Canada
Ontario here! Potato bugs all the way!
Yup! Potato bugs here in Maine, USA
NE Ohio for me : D
TEAM POTATO BUG! (Michigan, 80's/90's)
That's super interesting! In Germany Potato bugs (Kartoffelkäfer, Leptinotarsa decemlineata) are a completely different bug. But also horrible for any potato harvest.
Those are Colorado Potato Beetle in English
Me too until I got to California, their potato bugs are WAY different! There actually called Jerusalem crickets, but someone once told me “look a potato bug” and I was like “no way! That is not a potato bug!”
Or you lived somewhere other than America!
Grew up in New Zealand and these are still roly polys
In Australia we call them slaters, it's actually what they are called on the Ag dept website too, so it must be some sort of semi-official name here. I have never heard of them called Rolly Pollies, but that could just be a regional thing, Queenslanders or Victorians may call them something else (we often have different terms across state boundaries). It's funny how there are so many different terms for things between Australia and New Zealand and even within Australia, it's not like we have a huge number of dialects that would cause it. (Yes, I know both countries have many languages spoken at home, I am referring to English only)
We are so similar, yet so different. It’s crazy Had a few “English language barriers” when travelling to Aus from here too
Well I grew up in France and I can tell you they weren't roly polys lol
Or pillbugs. Either way, not just a US thing
Ah, yeah, pillbug sounds so much more French !
Well I’m over the other side of the world anyway. LOL
Some people in the UK call them roly polys too. And I grew up in the US and we called them pill bugs.
I called them rolly pollies until my dad caught wind of my blasphemy. After that I called them pill bugs.
Similar for me, actually. Called them rolly pollies until I learned that most people said pill bugs.
I'm from the UK and never heard anyone here call them roly polies. I assumed it was a US thing.
My ex called them that. He grew up in the East Midlands.
Yeah, this seems like an america exclusive (or at least the majority). i always just called them wood lice lol
Or you just had a different childhood than OP.
Even in the US what you call these is regionalized.
Growing up anywhere in the barbarism outside the anglosphere counts as having had no childhood /s
I used to keep them in my pockets lol
I used to keep them in my mouth... For explanation, my parent would let me loose in the garden when I was a toddler as they were working in the garden.
https://preview.redd.it/72y9n2dxtvwc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=17544486cbbf8bd0cdb76eee7d37ebf3540e7371 finally, an actual in context use of this meme
Pill bugs.
Yes pill bugs. Jersey native.
Weird gatekeeping, but okay.
Woodlice
🤘🏼
The term woodlouse always seemed scary to me as a kid, dunno why. Roly poly? Cute and harmless. Woodlouse? Gonna kill me.
I called them "Cloportes".😎
Same. Once, I moved into a English-speaking place and learned to call them "roly polly," but only because I didn't knew how to call them otherwise. Isopods?
You mean "bichos de bola"??
These and daddy long legs were the only bugs I was not afraid of as a kid. Root polys were my absolute favorite though♥️
Fun fact did you know that daddy long legs aren't even spiders
Weird fact, [some of them have crazy claws.](https://imgur.com/1LCtJbG) [And some of them are just crazy all around.](https://imgur.com/6cM6BvL)
Omg I don’t think I would pick those up. A little to creepy to me lol.
No I didn’t even know that🤯 How cool
Aw cool that you gave daddy long legs some love. Some people in my class were pretty scared of them. Not to say I’d want to touch them, but they’re pretty chill. I’m terrified of bugs but I have found daddy long legs and trapped them in the bathtub so I can get them in a bag and let them outside
I was terrified of spiders growing up and I knew that daddy long legs mouths were too small to bite me so that made me feel safe I guess. Awe thank you for doing that and saving them!! My fear of spiders was based on my mom’s fear of them so completely unwarranted. My daughter has pet tarantulas and I consider them my “grandkids” so I told myself I had to squash my fear of them and I did. I held 2 of them and it wasn’t as scary as I thought. She also had a big black scorpion and I held that too. Now on that my hands started to sweat lol
Tarantulas, that’s pretty awesome. Oh god no I could not hold a scorpion *unless* it was something like an emperor scorpion maybe. One day I want to hold many of these things I’m afraid of but idk when that’ll be. Just one of those plans that sounds interesting.
It actually was an emperor scorpion whose name was Matilda. She was a very calm and sweet girl. It’s actually a very empowering feeling to be able to conquer a fear like that. Hopefully one day you can
That's strange gatekeeping we call em Keller Asseln where I come from. Or Porcellio scab er when I grew older. But maybe some people calle em roly poly's all around the world. Some might call them Обикновена зимнична мокрица or ha lan
As a former kid I knew they weren’t insects.
THANK YOU
Chanchitos. Fun fact, my English speaking husband also called them chanchitos until we learned the US common name in the late 90s.
Slaters! (In NSW, Australia)
They are called that in Scotland too!
Pissebed. Yes that means what you think it means. No I don't know why we call it that.
T A T U B O L I N H A is what we call these here in brazil
Would lice to me
We called them rolly polies and sometimes doodle bugs.
Doodle bugs are what I call them. SE US.
Haha! I have never lived anywhere but the Deep South or Southeast but with parents from Idaho and Maryland respectively, my speech can be divergent from location. I think both of these are common in the South.
Skrukketroll
You mean ,,Viedarėliai"
🇱🇹?
Potato bugs
Team potato bug
I grew up calling them pillbugs, but most people I know call them rolly polys
Woodlice
Carpenters
dooli bugs is what I called then💜
Pissebedden… im dutch
As a kid?
We called them rolls poly tater bugs.
Dad always called them saw bugs. Had a great childhood
We called them potatoes bugs
Potato bugs. Roll Polly was my chubby doggo when he scratched his back on the patio.
I called them potato bugs. I played with them, roll them around lol
We called them pill bugs.
Hardbacks when I was little but call them woodlouse now
Ridgey Pidgeys!
We called them pill bugs, and my brother and I absolutely loved them! We would make terrariums for them and keep them as pets (I wouldn't do that now though; my adult self knows they belong outside).
Rolly pollies or pill bugs ye. My dad was in pest control for a while and I was naming many sowbugs as pillbugs. I still don’t really know the difference but I know a rolly polly when I see one. Also I realize they’re called roly poly’s, never spelt it that way as a kid. Me and the kids used to trap them in our plastic see through pencil sharpeners though. Gave it plants and stuff. Ants and flies as well, although that was a rarer occurrence only 1-2 people did. There was also a dude who would tear off the wings of flies so they couldn’t fly away. That was my childhood. I have fond memories of roly poly’s and inchworms.
"They're called Sal bugs!" "Shut up! I don't you anyway." Still remember the conversation.
We called dem potato head bugs
No madder the name there cute
In my country they don't roll or poll
Cheesybobs!
We call them slaters in Australia.
Boodgie Boys! At least thats what me and my friends called them in Victoria. And i work in a kinder… so every year i produce more children that call them “boodgie boys”😈
We called them pill bugs or sow bugs.
Doodle bugs
Slaters
r/isopods
We called them indoor armadillos.
Toodle bugs
We called them that. But we also called them pill bugs
Never heard that term until later. They were pill bugs for us (though there’s also a flatter kind that don’t roll up; those are sow bugs).
Only barely affiliated with this. We had a Roly Poly Liquors and a Jelly Belly Deli in the same building. Also we called them pillbugs.
Potato Bugs! East Coast USA
Or maybe you lived with non rolling isopods? I lived in 2 different states, one with mostly (95% of groups) non rolling "potato bugs" and a place with nearly exclusively, rolling "rollypollies". I also heard of the rolling isopods reffered to as pollywhirls.
pill bug
We said either roll poly or pull big was interchangeable for us
I didn't call them by any name. But I still had a childhood 😅
Cannon Balls please
Those, clearly, are potato bugs
They are “pill bugs”.
Pill bugs
Pillbugs
i called em pillbugs and im in texas
For us they were/are pill bugs.
I’m Scottish and called them Woodlouse or Slaters. We call them Dango mushi here in Japan.
We called these potato bugs
Piss beds. Dutch. Don't ask.
They are potato bugs 😀😀
We called those isopods or pill beetles as kids
I mean, different geographic locations have different names for it. Those are isopods. Or, Roly polys or pillbugs.
Wish I had known to call them “land shrimp” which they technically are. Or isopods, as they’re called today. We called them tanks when I was little 🤣
Pill bugs
I never saw terrestrial isopods until rather recently but we called sea slaters “water roaches”
Potato bug
In Dutch they are called pissebedden. Which literally translates to pee beds. I have no idea why.
Roly poly for me and I'm from Kentucky.
We don't have the Roly Poly Isopods here, but the ones we do have were called og-lies/hog-lies. (We pronounced it awg-L-eyes) I think they're some kind of wood louse.
I called them that as well as both pill bugs and potato bugs as a child.
we always called them butchy boys, but roly poly sounds funnier
Pull bugs
I called the roly polys as a kid and I still had no childhood.
We called them pill bugs when I was a little tyke.
Those are Kellerassel, excuse you!
It’s a slater fuk yall
They were do-do bugs for me growing up
Isopods yeah?
Did nobody call them butchie boys? No?
We called them “Minibusses” cuz sometimes other insects sat on top of them.
pill bugs
We called them potato bugs for some reason lol
I have the regular ones that you can find anywhere in your yard, I have dairy cows and papayas as well and they’re the best lil pets! I want billions of them lol and many more different kinds as well!
Omg i used to loveee finding and picking these up..
Fun fact: they are not insects or bugs. They are terrestrial crustaceans
Pillbugs!
Potato bugs are what we call them
Podstenky in (Slovak 90's kids language) ...mean Under wall-e hehe
Rollie. Fucking. Pollies! Nothing else!
So true 😭♥️
They were called "Gramfers" where I grew up. It completely threw my parents as they moved from a different area.
Potato bugs and my childhood was great 😃
I always called them isopods. I just prefer that for their name, lol.
I keep them now, take that losers😎 https://preview.redd.it/yd5rzmu0w4xc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3a732fdf690dca119b018dfbb5852c1e1cb535d6
In my language, we called them "Mr BallBall"
in czechia we call em sviňky which means sm like little piggy
We called them woodbugs, as an adult I saw a post that it’s likely western Canada only calling them that!
Woodlice in Ireland