Pillbugs Prefer Dark Over Light
An experiment, by Brady Wilsie

INTRODUCTION Pillbugs, also known as soybugs, or woodlice, are familiar backyard creepy crawlers to most of us. Pillbugs are classified as Isopods, and belong to the Class Crustaceans. Familiar crustaceans include lobsters, crabs, shrimp, and water fleas. The crustaceans are part of a large group called Arthropods (jointed legged animals). They all have tough outer cuticle, a trunk divided into segments, and limbs, which are flexible.

IDENTIFY VARIABLES I conducted an experiment on pillbugs, because I wanted to figure out which environment the pillbugs prefer more, a dark environment to a light environment, or a light environment to a dark environment. I believe they prefer a dark environment because pillbugs are known to live under ground and in cold environments. I know this from other studies and information I read. Under ground is a darker area than the outside world, in most occasions. So to conclude, my hypothesis states, if pillbug survival is dependent on avoiding light, then pillbugs will go to a darker environment over a light.

METHODS The materials needed in the process of the experiment were black paper, two animal behavior chambers, ten pill bugs, and a stopwatch. The process included 8 steps: #1 Gather ten pillbugs, #2 Get a two cell animal behavior chamber, #3 Get black paper, #4 Place black paper over one cell of the chamber, #5 Set the stop watch for 3 minutes and press start after all ten pillbugs are placed in one of the two chambers, #6 Place ten pillbugs in the dark chamber of three trials. Then place ten pillbugs in the light chamber for three trials, #7 After three minutes, lift the container to see how many bugs are in the light or dark area. During the experiment we used ten different pillbugs for each trial, and there are six trials total. They all stayed in the animal behavior chamber for three minutes at a time. We put the data into two charts, which were Pillbugs Starting in the Dark chamber and Pillbugs