The eastern tent caterpillar (Malacosoma americanum) is a univoltine, social species that forms communal nests in the branches of trees. It is sometimes confused with the gypsy moth, or the fall webworm, and may be erroneously referred to as a bagworm, which is the common name applied to unrelated caterpillars in the family Psychidae. The moths oviposit almost exclusively on trees in the plant family Rosaceae, particularly cherry (Prunus) and apple (Malus). The caterpillars are hairy with areas of blue, white, black and orange. The blue and white colors are structural colors created by the selective filtering of light by microtubules that arise on the cuticle.
Read more about Eastern Tent Caterpillar: Social Species, Tents and Temperature, Feeding, Toxicity
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“The Eastern steamboat passed us with music and a cheer, as if they were going to a ball, when they might be going to—Davy’s locker.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“When I from black and he from white cloud free,
And round the tent of Godlike lambs we joy,
I’ll shade him from the heat till he can bear
To lean in joy upon our father’s knee;
And then I’ll stand and stroke his silver hair,
And be like him, and he will then love me.”
—William Blake (1757–1827)
“That author who draws a character, even though to common view incongruous in its parts, as the flying-squirrel, and, at different periods, as much at variance with itself as the caterpillar is with the butterfly into which it changes, may yet, in so doing, be not false but faithful to facts.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)