Armadillidium nasatum Isopods

There is a good chance you have already met this one. Armadillidium nasatum is naturalised across Britain, a common find in greenhouses and gardens, which makes the wild-type an easy, familiar and very forgiving place to start. This is the standard form of the species, the woodlouse that turns up under a cold frame or a damp paving slab long before anyone thinks to keep it in a tub, and it carries all of that outdoor toughness indoors with it.

In colour it stays understated: pale grey through to a soft fawn, frequently marked with lighter stripes running the length of the body, and reaching a modest 15 to 18mm when fully grown. Look closely at the front of the head and you will find the feature that names the species, a small forward-pointing plate called the nasus that reads rather like the peak of a cap. It conglobates like other pill woodlice, though never completely: the ball stays slightly open at the front with the antennae visible, where an A. vulgare would shut itself away entirely. The wild-type is also the parent stock behind the brighter selectively bred lines, so once you know its shape you can trace the very same body in the vivid Orange, the speckled Dalmatian and the ghostly White morphs.

Why begin here? Because very little goes wrong. It is exceptionally hardy, quick to breed and unbothered by the small mistakes every new keeper makes, which is precisely what you want from a first colony. It also earns its keep as a cleanup crew, grazing leaf litter, spent food and animal waste in a bioactive setup, so it is as useful tucked into a dart frog or gecko enclosure as it is on a shelf of its own. As beginner Armadillidium go it has few rivals, and it sits comfortably within the wider Armadillidium collection alongside other forgiving favourites such as the Magic Potion line.

Care is refreshingly undemanding. Keep it at an ordinary room temperature of 18 to 24°C; it appreciates a little warmth and needs no special heating in most homes. Aim for moderate humidity in the region of 50 to 70%, but arrange it as a gradient with one reliably damp end and one distinctly drier end, because this is a species that copes with dry conditions far better than most of its relatives. Offer medium to high ventilation to keep the air fresh and stale pockets from forming. Over a moisture-retentive base, a layer of flake soil works nicely, then pile on plenty of leaf litter and a few pieces of cork bark for cover and grazing, and always keep a calcium source such as cuttlefish bone within reach for clean, trouble-free moults. Feed the usual detritivore fare, with decaying wood and dried leaves permanently on offer and the occasional slice of carrot, squash or a light pinch of fish flake for protein; a handful of springtails living alongside them will quietly deal with mould and leftovers.

Breeding asks nothing of you beyond patience. Give a settled group warmth, steady moisture and enough calcium and it will multiply quickly and willingly, the females carrying their eggs and then their young in a brood pouch before releasing tiny, fully formed versions of the adults. Within a few months a small starter culture grows into a proper working colony, which is a large part of what makes this such an ideal first Armadillidium and such a dependable engine for a bioactive tank.

Every culture is captive-bred here in the UK and packed to travel well: a ventilated tub of damp sphagnum moss, cushioned inside a double-walled box. We post Monday to Thursday by tracked next-day Royal Mail, aiming to reach you by 1pm the following day, and each order carries our live-arrival guarantee along with a 20% overcount as standard, so you can count on receiving a few more than you ordered.