conceal themselves under objects or hide in crevices or under bark. The semi-terrestrial sea slaters (Ligia spp.) can run rapidly on land and many terrestrial species can roll themselves into a ball when threatened, a feature that has evolved independently in different groups and also in the marine sphaeromatids. Feeding and nutrition Isopods have a simple gut which lacks a midgut section; instead there are caeca connected to the back of the stomach in which absorption takes place. Food is sucked into the esophagus, a process enhanced in the blood-sucking parasitic species, and passed by peristalsis into the stomach, where the material is processed and filtered. The structure of the stomach varies, but in many species there is a dorsal groove into which indigestible material is channelled and a ventral part connected to the caeca where intracellular digestion and absorption take place. Indigestible material passes on through the hindgut and is eliminated through the anus, which is on the pleotelson. Isopods are detritivores, browsers, carnivores (including predators and scavengers), parasites, and filter feeders, and may occupy one or more of these feeding niches. Only aquatic and marine species are known to be parasites or filter feeders. Some exhibit coprophagia and will also consume their own fecal pellets. Terrestrial species are in general herbivorous, with woodlice feeding on moss, bark, algae, fungi and decaying material. In marine isopods that feed on wood, cellulose is digested by enzymes secreted in the caeca. Limnoria lignorum, for example, bores into wood and additionally feeds on the mycelia of fungi attacking the timber, thus increasing the nitrogen in its diet. Land-based wood-borers mostly house symbiotic bacteria in the hindgut which aid in digesting cellulose. There are numerous adaptations to this simple gut, but these are mostly correlated with diet rather than by taxonomic group. Parasitic species are mostly external parasites of fish or crustaceans and feed on blood. The larvae of the Gnathiidae family and adult cymothoidids have piercing and sucking mouthparts and clawed limbs adapted for clinging onto their hosts. In general, isopod parasites have diverse lifestyles and include Cancricepon elegans, found in the gill chambers of crabs; Athelges tenuicaudis, attached to the abdomen of hermit crabs; Crinoniscus equitans living inside the barnacle Balanus perforatus; cyproniscids, living inside ostracods and free-living isopods; bopyrids, living in the gill chambers or on the carapace of shrimps and crabs and causing a characteristic bulge which is even