# Aquatic pill-bug?



## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

I am visiting South Korea, I'm staying in Ulsan and I found an aquatic bug that looks like a pillbug (sowbug, rolleypolley, isopod, wood louse, etc...). I found lots of them underwater, they only seemed to be eating dead leaves and left the aquatic plants alone. It looks similar to this picture:










Any ideas what it might be? Think it might be suitable for our aquariums?


----------



## HeyPK (Jan 23, 2004)

It looks like an aquatic isopod. We have many species in the U.S. Might be worth a try in an aquarium, but it might eat live plants too. Or, it might not eat anything but dead plant parts and be of no use in combating hair algae.


----------



## davemonkey (Mar 29, 2008)

I found some in the San Marcos, only they were very light colored..perhaps even a bit translucent, like shrimp...only they curled up like a pill bug.


----------



## ObiQuiet (Oct 9, 2009)

If they're truly aquatic, you may have discovered something:

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodlouse


> Few woodlice have returned to water. Evolutionary ancient species are amphibious, such as the marine-intertidal sea slater (Ligia oceanica), which belongs to family Ligiidae.
> 
> Other examples include some Haloniscus species from Australia (family Scyphacidae), and in the northern hemisphere several species of Trichoniscidae and Thailandoniscus annae (family Styloniscidae). Species for which aquatic life is assumed include Typhlotricholigoides aquaticus (Mexico) and Cantabroniscus primitivus (Spain).[


Can you keep some and see if they ever leave the water?


----------

