Woodlouse

Today's blip plans changed a few times. Yesterday I'd noticed some rather nice toadstools on a rotting tree stump at the back of the garden, and planned to photograph them today - however by this morning they were nowhere to be seen! (Could something have eaten them...?)

However while looking for them I found a rather pretty fragment of rotting wood with a beetle hiding in a hole in it. But that "beetled off" while I was sorting out my camera.

Then I noticed there was also a woodlouse (and, I think, a baby woodlouse) also hiding in the wood. The baby scuttled off too quickly for me but I managed to grab a macro of the adult before it too disappeared.

I'm intrigued (of course) by its eyes, which I've never seen before at this magnification. This prompted me to look up more about woodlice. This article states that they are actually terrestrial crustaceans - relatives of crabs, prawns and lobsters. Their eyes are rather basic, having only about 25 individual ocelli (Latin ocellus = "little eye") - presumably producing a very pixellated image! Seemingly they must keep moist to survive, absorbing dissolved oxygen by diffusion - no wonder they like to hide under big stones etc.

Funny how blip plans sometimes evolve...:)