Yellow-Shield Isopod — Fact Sheet

Armadillidium flavoscutatum · Yellow-Shield Pill Isopod

📋 At a glance

🏠 Enclosure

• For 10-20 animals: at least 25 × 18 × 15 cm with fine cross-ventilation.
• Place more openings over the less-wet half, while leaves and overlapping cork connect every moisture zone.
• Quarantine for 30-60 days; keep Red Head separate from unproven or differently sourced stock.

🪨 Enclosure furniture

• Use 5-7 cm of pesticide-free topsoil, deciduous leaf mould, and rotten hardwood.
• Cover at least three-quarters of the surface with safe hardwood leaves; add cork and moss at the wet end.
• Keep cuttlebone, limestone, or calcium carbonate available; avoid fertilizer, conifer wood, and coir-only substrate.

💡 Lighting

• UVB is not required.
• Use a 10-14-hour seasonal room-light cycle with deep shade.
• Avoid direct sun and heat-producing display lamps; this is a temperate Albanian species.

🌡️ Temperature

• Local warm point: 21-24 °C

• Warm zone: 17-24 °C

• Cool zone: 14-19 °C

• Night: 14-20 °C

• Seasonal room cooling can slow activity, but do not deliberately chill juveniles, new arrivals, or weak colonies.

• Avoid prolonged temperatures above 26-27 °C; heat only one outer wall under thermostat control.

💧 Humidity & water

• Use roughly 50-70% RH with about one-third consistently damp beneath moss and cork.
• Provide a transitional middle and ventilated, less-wet end; the damp lower layer must remain connected.
• No water dish. Add water only to the moist end; condensation means excess, failed moults mean insufficient refuge.

🥬 Diet

Feed freely:

• Decayed hardwood leaves
• White-rotted hardwood

In moderation:

• Carrot, squash, sweet potato, mushroom, courgette, or dried nettle two or three times weekly
• A small weekly portion of dried shrimp, gammarus, or fish food

Avoid:

• Fertilizer, treated garden waste, conifer wood, seasoned food
• Wet leftovers older than 24-48 hours and excessive protein

Supplements:

• Cuttlebone, limestone, or calcium carbonate permanently
• Support breeding females with calcium and modest protein, not heavy feeding

🩺 Health — warning signs

• Incomplete moults → moisture, calcium, or cool refuge inadequate
• Poor recruitment → prolonged heat, weak detritus diet, or repeated disturbance
• Mites and fungus → surplus food and insufficient airflow over the dry end
• Apparent misidentification → rely on provenance and diagnostic characters, not red head colour alone
• Red Head line mixed → enclosure labels or quarantine discipline failed

Isolate unexplained losses and consult an invertebrate-experienced exotic veterinarian or specialist laboratory if environmental correction does not stabilize the colony.