Philoscia muscorum, the common striped woodlouse or fast woodlouse, is a common Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an woodlouse

Woodlouse

A woodlouse is a crustacean with a rigid, segmented, long exoskeleton and fourteen jointed limbs...

. It is found from the British Isles

British Isles

The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and over six thousand smaller isles. There are two sovereign states located on the islands: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and...

 and southern Scandinavia

Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...

 east to Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

 and south to Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

. It has also spread to Washington and many states

U.S. state

A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...

 in New England

New England

New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...

, as well as Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...

.

Description

P. muscorum may reach 11 millimetre (0.433070866141732 in) in length, with a shiny body which is mottled and greyish-brown in colour.

Classification

Twelve subspecies

Subspecies

Subspecies in biological classification, is either a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, ora taxonomic unit in that rank . A subspecies cannot be recognized in isolation: a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or two or more, never just one...

are recognised:

• Philoscia muscorum albescens Collinge, 1918
• Philoscia muscorum aureomaculata Collinge, 1918
• Philoscia muscorum biellensis Verhoeff, 1936
• Philoscia muscorum dalmatia Verhoeff, 1901
• Philoscia muscorum frigidana Verhoeff, 1928
• Philoscia muscorum maculata Collinge, 1918
• Philoscia muscorum marinensis Verhoeff, 1933
• Philoscia muscorum muscorum (Scopoli, 1763)
• Philoscia muscorum rufa Legrand, 1943
• Philoscia muscorum standeni Collinge, 1917
• Philoscia muscorum triangulifera Verhoeff, 1918
• Philoscia muscorum virescens Collinge, 1917