this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2025
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Believe me, there are many other animals, you just don't see them ;)
Maybe I should word it better. There are many orders of magnitude more animals outside our garage than in it. The spiders are killing the pillbugs and it’s pretty much all the bugs that I ever find in my garage. There aren’t many bugs in Colorado comparatively, so the few that get in are very noticeable.
Natural cave systems don't have as many animals in them either, because there are just not enough nutrients around for larger populations to establish. (Exceptions are to this are caves where birds or bats nest in large colonies and there you can find huge populations of other animals feeding on the feces for example.)
I don't think the spiders necessarily feed on pillbugs though. At least I haven't observed that yet. I'd think spiders would either feed on other spiders or on any flying insects getting in the garage.
Oh and something new I've learned from Wikipedia about pillbugs:
Maybe check for that if there are so many in your garage?
I’ve seen their desiccated corpses in spider webs so I’m pretty sure that’s how they’re dying.
Yes there’s a woodworking shop in my garage lol so that would explain it nicely. Though I’ve never seen them on any of the wood.
It's interesting and shows the power of names, because when I was growing up I only ever heard them called woodlice, and didn't hear the name pillbug. So I kind of just always assumed they ate wooden structures and it was the rest of their diet that surprised me. Like I find them in fallen apples now that we have an apple tree and I didn’t expect that!