Caterpiller infestation

Anyone else in the northeast infested with tiny caterpillars that are eating every leaf in sight? We have millions of them and they are devastating my roses, among other things. They are probably the culprits that are eating huge holes in my hollyhock leaves also ... small, about 1/2 inch, dark, and seem to be laying eggs in rolled leaves of some trees ... in the woods it sounds like rain with tiny hard specks falling all around ... yuck ...

you do know what the tiny hard specks are......

well, I was afraid of that ... but I thought maybe eggs because I found them in rolled leaves ... double yuck ... do you know what caterpillars they are?

I'm not sure of the name, but they are the same ones I get every year - and I agree....YUCK!

I have tent caterpillars (cats) and gypsy moth cats...and those tiny hard specks were stuck to the bottom of my feet all day yesterday!

crockny,
do the 1/2 inch one's appear light green at first and then get darker? I have them too. I don't know what they are called.

http://www.flfarmandfeed.com/articles/eastTentCat.html
check it out

We had an Advisory from the county late in the Winter. "Expect the worst outbreak in 10 years of 'Tent Caterpillars, Gypsy Moth and our new invader Winter Moth.
They are everywhere, crawling up the side of the house, dangling from trees etc..
I thought the Monsoon of a couple weeks ago cut the numbers down, I think it only slowed their growth. It did give the trees a chance to green up a bit before getting the buds eaten.
I have a few fruit trees, apple in particular, that I can't spray often enough to control them.
I enjoy sitting on the patio with the laptop, but they crawl up my legs, even across the screen! Obviously I can't sit under a tree.
There was an article in Sundays paper about Camping sites on Cape Cod that were nearly deserted because of the caterpillars.
The birds will eat the Tent and Winter but not the Gypsy. Gypsy can cause a rash on your skin, too.
Andy P

PS, The Winter moth caterpillars are green inch worms that get just over an inch long at maturity. Did you see small gray moths flying around last December, that's them.
Andy P

this link is better for the inch worms
http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/2000/cateast/loopers.htm

Andy, I did notice the winter moths (they were around most of the winter past December). That must be the inch worms we have now. Thanks for the info.

ps
reference
http://www.massnrc.org/pests/pestFAQsheets/winter%20moth.html
Similar species:
The winter moth is very similar to fall cankerworm (Alsophila pometaria) in both adult (Figure 8) and larval (Figure 9) stages. Mixed populations of these two species occur in Massachusetts. Spring cankerworm (Paleacrita vernata) larvae are present at the same time in the spring as the fall cankerworm and winter moth larvae. This Umass Extension fact sheet compares Cankerworm and Winter moth.

This message was edited May 30, 2006 2:55 PM

I have not seen them as light green ... they are dark - almost black and range from tiny to about 1/2 inch ... although some of them hang on threads the way inch worms do ... but when they're crawling around they don't seem to be doing the inchworm thing ...

One trick I know for gypsy moth cats to prevent a second year's infestation is to search for their egg cases in fall and destroy them or coat with dormant oil. they are brownish or tannish or whitish, and are usually found stuck on wood: on the trunks of trees, on fences, under shingles, etc. Also, when we did have a gypsy moth infestation, I found banding the trees with duct tape, sticky side up, really helped. Does anyone know of any similar tricks for inchworms?

we also have forest tent caterpillars in the catskills. they are eating everything even the pine trees. i am spraying with every poison i have in the house but nothing seems to work. i called cornell cooperative extension and they said that a healthy tree will probably live through this but anything young or weak is probably shot. they also said that the dep had decided it was not financially feasible to spray for them. the catskills are expected to lose 70% of our foliage by the time this is over.

After further research I'm pretty sure they're the larvae of gypsy moths -- we saw the adults last year and I thought that was bad -- this is much, much worse ...

It's tent caterpillars here. Not happy about all of them wandering through my garden, but so far it's a lot better than what the rest of you folks are going through! Just wish the cats, who love to chase any other insect would do their share in taking out these things.

Too nasty even for the cats!

I had to check which these were, I knocked down a tent. They looked like these, big.
Gypsies have red? markings, these have blue.
The Gypsy seems to have been held down by the monsoon, here. They are still very small, less than an inch.
Andy P

eastern tent cat...

yuck ...

I have whole mature oak trees that are bare like the middle of winter that line my property that gypsy moths have completely consumed. 40 feet up and all you can hear underneith them is the rainpatter of poo. They sprayed about 1/2 mile down the road and I think they all made a road trip over here. The extention said that this is the worst outbreak in our county in quite some time.

Maybe you sould change your name to: mygypsymoth. ;^)

up here in the catskills, it looks like march- stick season, as we call it.(thats the one before mud season and after moving to florida season) no green on the mountains, all gray. very depressing. i can't imagine what autumn is going to be like.

I have tiny, tiny little leaf-green caterpillars on my roses, too. Can barely see them at first. If you can spot them easily, they've been there a while. Had them last year as well, but didn't (and don't) know what they were. They do not look anything like the tent caterpillars I had in my dogwood tree last year. I used Rose Pharm oil spray last year and am using it this year, both sides of leaf in evening, and it seemed to make things much better. I also had Japanese beetles. Buggy yard!