North Carolina Terrestrial Isopods 25 



vulgare. At one site A. nasatum was present in abundance under the 

 muddy vegetation of a rock near which Ligidium elrodii was common. 

 Several thousand A. nasatum occasionally were encountered under 

 refuse and dense vegetation, places where apparently they had aggre- 

 gated to spend the winter. However, the species was widespread in any 

 leaf litter and was frequently collected with all of the larger species. 

 Armadillidium vulgare is the most tolerant of dry conditions of any 

 species in the state. Leaf litter at the base of a house during summer was 

 one particularly dry habitat where about 100 specimens of several sizes 

 of the species were collected. It was not encountered in the very moist 

 habitats where A. nasatum was occasionally found. Both species of 

 Armadillidium frequently were together in habitats of intermediate 

 moisture, and the large aggregations of A. nasatum often contained 

 small numbers of A. vulgare. 



At night or on moist, cloudy days when isopods are generally most 

 active, any one of the larger, more common species could be found far 

 from the typical habitat. Although only a few were ever seen at any 

 time, the movements during moist times probably account for the 

 spread of such species throughout North Carolina and the southeastern 

 states. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.— The author would like to thank Dr. 

 Rowland M. Shelley, North Carolina State Museum of Natural His- 

 tory, Raleigh, for providing many of the specimens on which much of 

 this work was based. He would also like to thank Dr. John E. Cooper 

 of the State Museum for his help with the manuscript. Thanks also is 

 due to Harold and Norma Feinberg for the contribution of several 

 important collections from western North Carolina. 



LITERATURE CITED 



Brimley, C. S. 1938. The Insects of North Carolina. N.C. Dep. Agric. Div. 



Entomol., Raleigh. 560 pp. 

 Cooper, John E., and M. R. Cooper. 1977. Miktoniscus alabamensis Muchmore. 



Small Alabama Sowbug. pp. 21 1-212 in J. E. Cooper, S. S. Robinson and 



J. B. Funderburg (eds.). Endangered and Threatened Plants and Animals 



of North Carolina. N.C. State Mus. Nat. Hist., Raleigh, xvi + 444 pp. 

 Harger, Oscar. 1878. Descriptions of new genera and species of Isopoda, from 



New England and adjacent regions. Am. J. Sci. Arts (3)75:373-379. 

 Kelley, B. J. Jr. 1978. Order Isopoda. pp. 167-170 in Zigmark, R. J. (ed.). An 



annotated checklist of the biota of the coastal zone of South Carolina. 



Univ. South Carolina Press, Columbia, xii + 364 pp. 

 Richardson, Harriet. 1905. Monograph on the isopods of North America. Bull. 



U.S. Natl. Mus. 54:\\\-121. 

 Schultz, George A. 1961. Distribution and establishment of a land isopod in 



North America. Syst. Zool. 10(4): 193-196. 



