Tent Caterpillar
About 26, including:
- Malacosoma americanum
Eastern tent caterpillar - Malacosoma californicum
Western tent caterpillar - Malacosoma castrense
Ground Lackey - Malacosoma disstrium
Forest tent caterpillar - Malacosoma neustrium
Lackey moth
Tent caterpillars are moderately sized species in the genus Malacosoma and in the moth family Lasiocampidae. Species occur in North America, including Mexico, and in Eurasia. Twenty-six species have been described, six of which occur in North America. Some species are considered to have subspecies as well. They are often considered pests due to their habit of defoliating trees. They are among the most social of all caterpillars and exhibit many noteworthy behaviors.
Tent caterpillars are readily recognized because they are social, colorful, diurnal and build conspicuous silk tents in the branches of host trees. Some species, such as the eastern tent caterpillar, Malacosoma americanum, build a single large tent which is typically occupied through the whole of the larval stage, while others build a series of small tents that are sequentially abandoned. Whereas tent caterpillars make their tents in the nodes and branches of a tree's limbs, webworms enclose leaves and small branches at the ends of the limbs.
Read more about Tent Caterpillar: Life Cycle
Famous quotes containing the words tent and/or caterpillar:
“At last I feel the equal of my parents. Knowing you are going to have a child is like extending yourself in the world, setting up a tent and saying “Here I am, I am important.” Now that I’m going to have a child it’s like the balance is even. My hand is as rich as theirs, maybe for the first time. I am no longer just a child.”
—Anonymous Father. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 5 (1978)
“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)