This is a weird question but everyone else could smell these, right? Like a weird bitter, musty smell. That post about people smelling ants a while back made me wonder what other bugs not all people smell.
They excrete ammonia through their exoskeleton because they don't actually pee! I've only noticed a smell from them when they're in large groups. They may be a bit smelly, and a lot of people mislabel them as insects, but they're actually terrestrial isopods and are related to crabs and shrimps!
Certain ants are pretty distinct. Thatch ants spray formic acid as a defense, and will have a sour smell (and taste, or so I've been told). Odoriferous house ants are named so for obvious reason, and smell (to me) like pen ink. Assuming they taste terrible, but I dunno anyone who's tasted one.
Also, for what it's worth, my entomologist father refers to the thread's subject as "sow bugs", so that's how I know them, but pill bugs and rolly polly are common here.
I was taught they were called pill bugs. Although I knew them as also roly polys. My mother called them pill bugs, the other kids called them roly polys.
She told me it was an east coast versus west coast name and clearly is more "every group of people had decided they wanted to name this thing themselves" XD
I mean I have a pair of aquatic sowbugs I've been keeping in an empty yogurt cup. They look like regular sowbugs but they're underwater, hence aquatic sowbug.