Armadillo bug ?

[prisana]

I found 2 of these little buggers this morning. One was on my phal leaf and the other was on another phal's pot. They look like wood lice (not sure what a wood louse look like either ) when I picked them up they curled up into perfectly round , armor-like ball. Will they hurt my plants ?--sorry no picture yet--got to go to work. Thanks in advance.

[mayres]

I'm very rarely correct on these guessing "games", but sounds like sowbugs or pillbugs, that like to feed on mold, mildew, algae, etc. A nuisance, but no harm to your orchids that I know of......mike
Here are a lot of pics of these and similar http://www.whatsthatbug.com/Pill.html
mike

[Cynthia, Prescott, AZ]

Yep, sow or pill bugs. For a few plants, the ready mixed Bayer Advanced Rose and Flower, but you need to soak the pot, so it may be better to get the B A Tree & Srub and mix it to the same concentration. Need to calculate it. Or get the B A Lawn & something, ready to spray. This last one goes on the end of a hose and automatically mixes the right concentration, what ever that is. A friend got rid of a massive infestation of sow bugs in her greenhouse with the Law stuff. One bottle did the entire large GH with some left over. Imidaclorid is the active ingredient you want.

By the way, sow bugs will kill orchids. I lost a Cattleya maxima to sow bugs when they eat the just started growing eye. Found one curled up inside the cavity remaining. The reason for the death of the plant was that they left the plant with no viable eyes. The plant looked OK, but with out eyes, the plant eventually died of old age. I like to call it one of the 'walking dead'.

[prisana]

Thanks Mike and Cynthia, I'll try to hunt these guys down without pesticide use first, but if it fails, I'll definetly have to resort to a chemical warfare . I looked at the link you've posted Mke, and that's the bug, thanks again.