Turn over a loose stone or fallen log and you will most likely encounter a Wood Louse (suborder Oniscidea). They have a variety of more pleasant names -- pill bugs, roly-poly, roll-up bug, sow bug and wood bug.
However, they are not bugs at all. Nor are they louse. They are isopod crustaceans, meaning they are more closely related to shrimp and lobsters than to insects.
And, not all of them can roll up into little balls. There are over 5,000 species of Woodlice. Only members of the Armadillidae family have this ability.
Woodlice are beneficial to ecosystems - including gardens - as they eat dead and dying materials, produce compost and till the soil.
