Feeding
Tent caterpillars secrete silk from a spinneret wherever they go, and frequently used pathways soon bear conspicuous silk trails. As the caterpillars move about the tree, they largely confine their movements to these trails. Curiously, it is not the silk they follow, but a pheromone trail secreted from the posterior tips of their abdomens. Caterpillars deposit exploratory trails by dragging their abdomens as they move over the tree in search of food. Caterpillars that find food and feed overmark the exploratory trails they follow back to the tent, creating recruitment trails. Recruitment trails are much more attractive to the caterpillars than exploratory trails, and serve to lead hungry caterpillars directly to the newest food finds. A single successful forager can recruit the entire colony to its food find.
The exact identity of the trail pheromone of the eastern tent caterpillar has not yet been determined, but the chemical 5β-cholestane-3-one has been shown to be fully competitive with the authentic trail pheromone. Caterpillars readily follow trails of this chemical, even abandoning their own trails in favor of artificial trails prepared with the compound.
The eastern tent caterpillar is of some importance as a plant pest, since it may defoliate ornamental trees. Defoliated trees, however, rarely suffer significant damage and typically refoliate within several weeks.
Read more about this topic: Eastern Tent Caterpillar
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—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)