Peracca's Pill Woodlouse — Fact Sheet

Armadillidium peraccae · Peracca’s Pill Woodlouse

📋 At a glance

🏠 Enclosure

• Minimum colony box: 30 × 20 × 15 cm; secure, smooth-sided and indoors
• Substrate: 6-8 cm pesticide-free topsoil, decomposed leaves and soft rotten hardwood
• Ventilation: fine cross-ventilation high on two sides; protect against manca escapes
• Keep roughly one-third damp through its depth and the opposite surface mostly dry
• Avoid fertilized soil, aromatic or resinous wood and material from treated ground

🪨 Enclosure furniture

• Thick deciduous leaf litter and rotten hardwood, replenished before depletion
• Cork flats across the gradient and a little moss at the damp end
• Permanent cuttlebone, limestone or clean crushed eggshell
• Isolate unexpected colours or body shapes; do not distribute uncertain stock as A. peraccae

💡 Lighting

• UVB: not required
• Light: diffuse room or plant lighting; protect from direct sun
• Photoperiod: 10-12 hours daily
• No specialist lamp or UVB replacement schedule is needed

🌡️ Temperature

• Basking spot: 22-24 °C

• Warm zone: 19-24 °C

• Cool zone: 17-21 °C

• Night: 16-20 °C

• Keep a cool zone available; heat only one side if necessary

• Measure air at substrate level with a digital probe

• Avoid prolonged temperatures above 26 °C and never heat from below

💧 Humidity & water

• Working range: 50-75%; moist refuge 70-85% for molts and mancae
• Add water to the damp corner, not the entire enclosure
• No open water dish; check moisture beneath apparently dry leaves
• Whole-lid condensation or wall climbing → excess water, heat or poor airflow

🥬 Diet

Feed freely:

• Deciduous leaves and soft rotten hardwood

In moderation:

• Firm vegetable pieces several times weekly
• Pinch of fish food or dried-invertebrate protein about weekly

Avoid:

• Moldy leftovers, pesticide-exposed litter and large protein portions

Supplements:

• Cuttlebone, limestone or clean crushed eggshell continuously

🩺 Health — warning signs

• No young after purchase → excessive disturbance or unsettled mixed-age group
• Manca disappear → dry refuge or ventilation openings too large
• Incomplete molts → poor moisture gradient or calcium shortage
• Fungus gnats or mites → protein excess and weak airflow
• Unexpected form or colour → quarantine and verify identity before sharing stock