---
title: Dwarf white isopod in a terrarium | Glass Jar Garden
description: Dwarf white isopod (Trichorhina tomentosa): Tiny white isopods that live in the soil. The usual cleanup crew for small jars. Needs eats litter 0.002 mg/day...
url: https://glassjar.garden/guide/critters/trichorhina-tomentosa/
---

Critters

# Dwarf white isopod
Trichorhina tomentosa

Closed jar only

Tiny white isopods that live in the soil. The usual cleanup crew for small jars.

## What the simulation uses

- Eats litter: 0.002 mg/day each (Dead leaves one animal shreds a day, turning them back into soil.)

- Eats mould: 0.004 mg/day each (Mould one animal grazes a day, keeping fuzz and grey mould down.)

- Colony at most: 95,000 per m² (How many the floor can feed when food is plentiful; less food, fewer.)

- Starving loses: 15 % a day (How fast a colony thins when the jar cannot feed it.)

- Eats: decaying plant, leaf litter, frass, mould, fungi, animal waste (Foods it lives on; the jar feeds it from whichever of these it has.)

- Humidity: 80 to 100 % RH (Air moisture it needs.)

- Temperature: 21 to 29 °C (Comfortable range; beyond it the colony suffers.)

- Doubles in: 45 days (Time for the colony to double with plenty of food.)

- Lives: 547.5 days (How long one animal lives.)

## Care

- Size: 2 to 3 mm

- Moisture: Moist

## What kills it

- substrate drying
- temps below ~18 C (tropical species)
- waterlogged anoxic substrate
- lack of leaf litter

## Description
It cannot roll into a ball, so it relies entirely on moist soil to avoid drying. The colony is all female and needs warmth above about 18 °C. Provide leaf litter and avoid soggy, airless soil.

Also called dwarf white, dwarf white woodlouse, Bathytropa thermophila.

Estimated, where sources were thin: clutch_or_offspring; maturity_days; generation_days; lifespan_days; temp_c.

## Sources

- [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichorhina_tomentosa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichorhina_tomentosa)
- [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodlouse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodlouse)

[Grow it in a jar](https://glassjar.garden/?guide=critters/trichorhina-tomentosa)

[Dairy cow isopod](https://glassjar.garden/guide/critters/porcellio-laevis/) · [Little sea isopod](https://glassjar.garden/guide/critters/cubaris-murina/) · [All critters](https://glassjar.garden/guide/critters/)