#hyphantria

[zibaldone-di-pensieri]

🐞🐛

[iwilltryalittlearter]

Quick sketch during first game with her new bead and feather belt.

[wildflowers-of-southern-ontario]

Fall Webworm Moth Hyphantria cunea Erebidae

Photographs taken on August 13, 2023, at Pinery Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada.

[onenicebugperday]

@scalpelfightclub submitted: This is definitely what peak performance looks like. Maine!

This is the ideal body shape.

[that-crazy-scorpio-man]

A fuzzy boi I one day found at work.  Him so FLUFFY!!!

[coolbugs]

Bug of the Day

I had a small infestation of fall webworms (Hyphantria cunea) on my medlar tree this past summer (why do I have a medlar tree? I should not, I live in New England, but it came with the house :-)). The tree is tiny and the nest was right at eye level, so I dug in, and here the caterpillars are, wrapped up in their silk- and poop-filled glory...

[calosoma-amitch]

Fall Webworm (Hyphantria cunea), Willistown, PA. September 2017. 

Here’s a caterpillar most find unwelcome on their properties. As the name implies, fall webworms form large tents in trees during late summer into fall, where they can feed on leaves without being attacked by predators (although many parasitic wasps find their way in). Other tent-makers, such as the eastern tent caterpillar, occur in the Mid-Atlantic around mid-to-late spring, helping separate the webworm from similar species. 

The fall webworm can feed on over 600 different species of trees and shrubs, and may have the widest range of host plants for an insect in the world.Often caterpillars defoliate the branches they feed on, and in large numbers, even the trees. Only when the caterpillars are mature do they leave the safety of these tents, wandering to other plants and preparing to pupate. 

Around two generations in the Mid-Atlantic, with caterpillars common in late July, and again in late August through September. 

[iwilltryalittlearter]