We call them Kellerasseln.

the child in purple seems to be an abusive Potato bug owner

Apparently, the official English name is Woodlouse.

Wikipedia says: Common names for woodlice vary throughout the English-speaking world. They include roly-poly, pill bug (usually applied only to the genus Armadillidium), sow bug, carpenter (in Newfoundland, Canada), woodbug, potato bug, armadillo bug, slater, ball bug, chuggy pig, hardy back, butcher boy, and cheeselog.

I, for one, prefer cheeselog.

I played with those bugs ALL the time when I was little. I always got so frustrated when they'd curl up and wouldn't crawl anymore.

Haha oh the memories! I forgot what we used to call them until zachs dictionary explanation included 'Slaters'... If only i had know about calling them cheeselogs!

One of my earliest memories is being in preschool, I think I was 2 1/2 or 3 and I was with some friends, we were flicking a rolly polly back and fourth to eachother.

Oh wow. Slaters are weird. So much fun to flick around. They remind me of that Escher drawing with the thing that kind of curls up. Bizarre.

I've used roly poly, pill bug, potato bug, sow bug.
If they roll into a ball...carefully pry them open and pull their legs off. Then slowly pull the body apart into two equal halves so you can see the guts. Put the pieces into an ant trail or spider web and watch the show.

Wow charlie, that was... um... yeah...

I love your reply when she shows you how they have lots of the bugs.

"mmmmm."

The little girl is so bossy, I wonder what her parents are like.

I remember those bugs! My best friend in the 5th grade would go looking for them and purposely roll them up between her thumb and pointer finger.

In Dutch: 'pissebedden'.

I made my sister, Katie, eat a dead roly-poly when she was four.

great flickr stuff also