Armadillidiidae

I just learned this word, even though I've know of the family it describes my whole life. So have you, probably.

Pill bugs, roly-polies, potato bugs, sow bugs, wood lice, they're all names for the same thing.

My wildlife biologist wife told me years ago that potato bugs (I'm from Idaho, so of course they're potato bugs) aren't bugs at all. They're crustaceans, like crabs or lobsters.

For some reason that made me unreasonably happy. I enjoy imagining these little crustaceans that somehow got confused and wandered up on land, befuddled but determined. Since then they have made the best of it. finding wet places to hang out, like the underside of rocks or in strawberry beds (the only problem I've ever had with them is that they eat my strawberries). Wondering vaguely where the ocean went all those millennia ago, wondering if it's ever coming back.