[Pudding4brains]

Just a short intro ...

My name is Arp, I'm from the Netherlands and landed here by ways of the WAB-forums where I was looking around for some Woodlice images. I'm basically a total nature nincompoop who started shooting low quality snapshots (not photos!) of all sorts of little critters around the summer of 2006 and learned a little bit about these animals since. Snapshots are basically aimed at documenting species for free projects such as Wikipedia, but for various reasons I haven't uploaded much of my collection yet.

Looked for a "small" group to learn a little more about and decided to start off with ladybirds and their larvae. Somewhere along the road, basically due to some dutch/german vernacular names confusion, got sidetracked with woodlice as well and as a consequence I'm currently preparing a website on the dutch woodlice that will run as a subsite of the fine dutch ladybird site stippen.nl (stipple.org).

So much for now.
Greetings from the Netherlands!
Arp

[paul m]

Welcome, Arp, to our growing band of of enthusiasts - with different specialities but all interested in all aspects of nature .... I think ...

[goosey]

Hi Arp, a welcome from North Holland from me .
I look forward to your posts and any photo's of your critters if you can up load them at any time with any info you have learned to help me and others .
Tot ziens!

[Pudding4brains]

Hi Folks,

Thanks for the welcome

@Goosey: You Dutch, or just (have to) live there?

Cheers!
Arp

[goosey]

Originally Posted by Pudding4brains

Hi Folks,

Thanks for the welcome

@Goosey: You Dutch, or just (have to) live there?

Cheers!
Arp

I'm English and choose to live here .
...And yourself?

[Pudding4brains]

Originally Posted by goosey

...And yourself?

I'm indigenous to NL (as you may well have noticed by some peculiar grammar and spelling by now ), but a bit of a "foreigner" in the south/east where I spend most time now
Cheers!
Arp

[Suzanne B]

Hoi Arp
And welcome from me too!
I see you're already settling in, so I look forward to reading more of your posts and seeing some of your photos as well.
See you around the forums!
Suzanne

[Pudding4brains]

Hi Suzanne,

Originally Posted by Suzanne B

Hoi Arp

That makes one feel right at home - Thanks!

seeing some of your photos as well

Well, as stated above, I don't really make photos, just snapshots, but as soon as I find out what sort of content and quality is wanted and where it's supposed to go I'll see if I have some images that fit the requirements

See yah,
Arp

[black]

Welcome Arp,
hope you enjoy your time on this website

[Pudding4brains]

Originally Posted by black

Welcome Arp, hope you enjoy your time on this website

Thanks black, I'm sure I will

[Pudding4brains]

Hi Pia,

Originally Posted by pia watson

Maybe this year i'll be going to your place to spend some vacation.

Hope you do
I can't say much yet about what I'll be doing this year, where I'll be when etc., but once you have a time frame let us know. Maybe I (or other dutchies here?) can arrange to be tourguide for a day or so and/or help with other things you need sorted out locally (either before or after arrival).

See yah
Arp

[Guy F]

Hi Arp and welcome to the site, sorry I'm a bit late!
Guy

[Pudding4brains]

Originally Posted by Guy F

sorry I'm a bit late!

Big deal ... all the more appreciated you still take the trouble to say hi

Thanks Guy!
Arp

[paul m]

I went out woodlice hunting today - not something I do regularly. Someone wanted some woodlice for a school project so I said, "No problem, I'll go and collect a few hundred.'.

Serious struggle to find 30-40 and those mainly small - in the whole of my garden and a thirty minute walk through the wood.

Where have they all gone or are there always few at this time of year and I've simply never noticed? I've always assumed that in their relatively insulated microhabitats, they would stay active and numerous all through the winter.

Originally Posted by Pudding4brains

........... I was looking around for some Woodlice images. I'm basically a total nature nincompoop who started shooting low quality snapshots (not photos!) of all sorts of little critters around the summer of 2006 and learned a little bit about these animals since. Snapshots are basically aimed at documenting species for free projects such as Wikipedia, but for various reasons I haven't uploaded much of my collection yet.

Looked for a "small" group to learn a little more about and decided to start off with ladybirds and their larvae. Somewhere along the road, basically due to some dutch/german vernacular names confusion, got sidetracked with woodlice as well and as a consequence I'm currently preparing a website on the dutch woodlice that will run as a subsite of the fine dutch ladybird site Lieveheersbeestjes (Stipple...).
...........

[Pudding4brains]

Hi Paul,

It seems you are looking for the big ones, not the minute soil-dwellers. They are indeed around all year, but in winter they'll "burrow in" a bit deeper. That is, either deeper into the decaying wood, or deeper into the ground (under deeper rocks etc).

At the moment they shouldn't be too hard to find though, but not every feasible spot is a guaranteed hit. Just this afternoon I had to kill some time waiting around a hospital (visiting) and looked around in a cluster of fairly big rocks (20-30kg category) half buried in the ground. In the whole cluster of about 20 rocks only two rendered a "Jackpot" of some 100-300 Porcellio scaber scrambling for cover (they do like to huddle-up together )

Other favourite spots would be under large patches of quite loose bark on fairly rotten trees (or rather their corpses), or bark and tree-stumps half buried in the forest soil (or under flat boards or stone tiles on moist soils). On the moister spots you're a tad more likely to find groups of Oniscus asellus on the somewhat dryer areas more Porcellio scaber, or maybe the "Pill-bug" Armadillidium vulgare, but there is a fair amount of overlap in acceptable moistness conditions for these (so you'll often find mixed groups).

The other "most abundant" species is Philoscia muscorum but they don't group together quite as much - you'd be lucky to find a group of 10 or so and then you'd have to be quick to catch them as they certainly are even more "nervous" (and a hell of a lot quicker) than the others. On the other hand - this would be the time of year to enhance your chances - the cold does make all of them a good deal slower to respond/run

Finding many relatively (or even very) small animals is also a bit of a "time of year" thing. Most youngsters born last summer/fall go into the winter still fairly small and hardly grow at all during winter (very reduced metabolism and growth rate) they should just about pick up on the growing track again round about now. In late spring, early summer most will be decent "half sized adults" or so and the new ones will not be born yet (or too minute to really notice), so the whole population will look "bigger" on average. The "huge" ones are more scarce as they will need very favourable environmental conditions to grow a lot and survive a few years (mostly 2-3 years, but some species up to 10 or so) to reach maximum size.

One lazy-mans trick that I've read about but never tested would be to distribute a number of hollowed-out potatoes in your garden overnight and see what's in/under them in the morning. I strongly suspect that to only work in warmer season though as they certainly wander about less at night when it's cold.

Hope it helps, Arp