{"product_id":"trachelipus-ratzeburgii-isopods","title":"Trachelipus ratzeburgii Isopods for Sale","description":"\u003cp\u003eDisturb one and it stops. Where a \u003cem\u003ePorcellio\u003c\/em\u003e bolts and an \u003cem\u003eArmadillidium\u003c\/em\u003e shuts itself into a ball, this woodlouse presses down against the bark and holds still, and the German field literature notes the habit specifically. It is a woodland animal that has committed to not being noticed, and it works: the mottled dark grey-brown with pale flecks down the sides is exactly the colour of the wet oak bark it lives under.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eTwo corrections before anything else, both to our own page.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe handle on this listing used to spell the species \u003cem\u003erotzeburgi\u003c\/em\u003e. It should be \u003cem\u003eratzeburgii\u003c\/em\u003e - \u003cem\u003eTrachelipus ratzeburgii\u003c\/em\u003e, and Brandt put it in \u003cem\u003ePorcellio\u003c\/em\u003e when he described it in 1833, hence the brackets round his name now. The visible title was always right, the URL was wrong, and in August 2026 we corrected it; the old address still redirects here.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe old copy also called the man Johann Theodor Christian Ratzeburg. The forest zoologist of that era was Julius Theodor Christian Ratzeburg. We have cut the sentence instead of correcting the forename, because no source we can find actually states that the epithet honours him - the English common name implies it, and nobody has written it down.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eRange and size\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eCentral European and strongly so: Germany and Austria account for the large majority of records, with Italy, France, Czechia, Switzerland, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia behind them. It is not a British species, whatever a stray record suggests, and our native member of this genus is \u003cem\u003eT. rathkii\u003c\/em\u003e instead.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eOn size, sources disagree. One gives females at 11.5mm, another 12 to 16mm. Our own older page printed a flat 15mm with nothing behind it. Somewhere around 11 to 16mm is the honest span.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe finer identification points, if you like that sort of thing: eyes of eighteen to twenty-five facets, rust-coloured hind corners to the coxal plates, strong tuberculation across the tergites that weakens towards the edges, and no median stripe down the back. It is almost exclusively a woodland animal, found under wood, bark and litter and only rarely out in the open.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIt is worth being plain that this is not a British woodlouse, whatever the odd stray record suggests. The member of this genus that is genuinely resident here is \u003cem\u003eT. rathkii\u003c\/em\u003e, a different and commoner animal. If you have turned woodlice out of a Midlands log pile, you have not met this one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eKeeping\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eCool. 18 to 24°C suits them and they tolerate the lower end better than the upper. This is a genuinely easy species for a UK room, needing no heat and no particular attention through winter.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eHumidity graded across the tub, 60 to 75%. Structure is what they actually want: overlapping bark, flat stone, and enough leaf litter to vanish into. Substrate 5cm is ample since they are surface animals, not burrowers. White-rotted hardwood, permanent calcium, protein occasionally.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThey will not roll up. The whole genus is built to cling and flatten instead, and if you push one it will grip harder before it will curl.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAll of that is shelf practice; the tolerances of this species have never been tested.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBeing a cool-running species this one travels well nearly all year, and we only pause in a genuine heatwave. Animals go out Monday through Thursday in an air-holed tub bedded on moist moss, inside a double-skinned box, plus 20% over the number your order shows, guaranteed to land alive.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PostPods","offers":[{"title":"10","offer_id":55512981799294,"sku":null,"price":30.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"20","offer_id":55512981832062,"sku":null,"price":55.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"5","offer_id":55512981864830,"sku":null,"price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0759\/0707\/2294\/files\/trachelipus-rotzeburgi-isopods-856527.jpg?v=1749549851","url":"https:\/\/postpods.co.uk\/products\/trachelipus-ratzeburgii-isopods","provider":"PostPods","version":"1.0","type":"link"}