Planning

 

Planning

All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Unusually, I am preparing well ahead – well, a day or two, anyway – for the 2023 A to Z Challenge. It is several years since I undertook this challenge.

I am basing my posts on ‘Nature’, a fairly wide-ranging theme, I think you’ll agree.

One of the wonderful things about ‘Nature’ is that most things have at least two names, the official, usually Latin name, and the accepted common name or names. Some things have many different local names. It also means that one ‘thing’ may appear in several categories, though Q, U and X are a bit thin.

For example, woodlouse can be categorised under W (obviously!)

but also under crustacean (C), Oniscidea (O), Isopoda (I), Armadillo bug (A), butcher or butchy boy (B), cheeselog (C), gramersow (G), pea bug (P), roll up bug (R), slater (S), wood pig (W). See how I have, in true teacherly fashion, emphasised the concept of multiple categories, otherwise known as ‘hammering it home’?   

  

 Their only form of defence is to roll into a ball. I don't think it's very effective

I discovered, thanks to Wikipedia, that the mother woodlouse keeps fertilised eggs on the underside of her body in a marsupium (lovely word) or brood pouch. The eggs hatch into little white baby woodlice, though they only have six of the eventual seven pairs of legs. Females can also reproduce asexually. 

If you should be tempted to try eating these tiny crustaceans, be warned that they taste unpleasantly of strong urine. (Would weak urine be a more acceptable taste?) 

As an aside, how many woodlice would one need to create a starter?

They are also a popular pet! Some are bred specifically for their colour.

Blue woodlouse

 Should you so desire it, the Rubber Ducky will set you back more than $100 (£100) for six individuals.

Rubber Ducky Isopod, (Cubaris sp. "Rubber Ducky")

   £25.00 GBP

The collective noun for woodlice is ‘a quabble’. I really want an opportunity to use that lovely noun in company. (I am a fount of useless knowledge and can close down any conversation.)

Oh, damn, now I can’t use woodlouse . . . !

From a plethora of photographs in Lightroom, I have compiled a list of ‘things beginning with’ and now have to select one or two for each letter, otherwise my posts will be unconscionably long. I just hope I can continue to the end, to Z, (there I go, ramming it home again) rather than fading out ignominiously around the half-way mark.