Friday, August 26, 2022

Common Names for Sow Bugs

Common names for woodlice vary throughout the English-speaking world. A number of common names make reference to the fact that some species of woodlice can roll up into a ball. Other names compare the woodlouse to a pig.

Common names include:

  • armadillo bug
  • billy baker (South Somerset)
  • billy button (Dorset)
  • boat-builder (Newfoundland, Canada)
  • butcher boy or butchy boy (Australia, mostly around Melbourne)
  • carpenter or cafner (Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada)
  • carpet shrimp (Ryedale)
  • charlie pig (Norfolk, England)
  • cheeselog (Reading, England)
  • cheesey wig
  • cheesy bobs (Guildford, England)
  • cheesy bug (North West Kent, Gravesend, England)
  • cheesy lou (Suffolk)
  • cheesy papa (Essex)
  • chiggy pig (Devon, England)
  • chisel pig
  • chucky pig (Devon, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, England)
  • chuggy pig
  • crawley baker (Dorset)
  • daddy grampher (North Somerset)
  • damp beetle (North East England)
  • doodlebug (also used for the larva of an antlion)
  • fat pigs (Cork, Ireland),
  • gramersow (Cornwall, England)
  • granny grey (Wales)
  • granny grunter (Isle of Man)
  • grumper-pig (Bermuda)
  • hardback (Humberside, England)
  • hobbling Andrew (Oxfordshire, England)
  • hobby horse (Isle of Purbeck, Dorset, England)
  • hog-louse
  • horton bug (Deal, Kent, England)
  • humidity bug (Ontario, Canada)
  • jomits (Cloneganna)
  • menace (Plymouth, Devon)
  • mochyn coed (tree pig), pryf lludw (ash bug), granny grey in Wales
  • monkey-peas (Kent, England)
  • pea bug (Medway, England)
  • peasie-bug (Kent, England)
  • pennysow (Pembrokeshire, Wales)
  • piggy wig
  • pill bug (usually applied only to the genus Armadillidium)
  • potato bug
  • roll up bug
  • roly-poly
  • saw bug (Dingwall, Nova Scotia)
  • slater (Scotland, Ulster, New Zealand and Australia)
  • sour bug (Cambridgeshire)
  • sow bug
  • water bug
  • wood bug (British Columbia, Canada)
  • wood-louse
Read more, here.

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