in the last week. these trees have been stripped of all their leaves.
Shellback
Loc: North of Cheyenne Bottoms Wetlands - Kansas
Wow - hungry little things -
Where is this?
Worcester ma. near the airport .
Holy-Moly..! Lucky for us they are vegetarians.
Gypse moths. Located in the north east USA. The trees will put out some new leaves,but it weakens the tree.
We have the same phenomenon in Texas periodically but with a caterpillars that spins a silk (web) trail. They will literally cover everything with their "web" after stripping an oak tree. Took the trees 2 years to recover. Nature is sometimes amazing to watch.
About 35 years back the gypsy moth catipillars stripped all the leafed trees and then went to the fir trees. Many of those were stripped so bad they did not survive. The deciduous trees were all leafed out by late July. This was in central MA. I lived in Berlin, MA at the time. It was very strange to see no leaves in early July. I hope this outbreak is not as bad as that one was.
Gypse moths. Located in the north east USA. The trees will put out some new leaves,but it weakens the tree.
It all started in 1869 with less than a hundred escapees in Bedford Mass.
wormtownspawn wrote:
in the last week. these trees have been stripped of all their leaves.
OH NO!! I was hoping we would escape this year. They were really bad two years ago and we lost a lot of trees. Loosing the trees is bad enough, but everything gets covered in greasy poppy seed sized poop which is really disgusting.
Gypsy moth caterpillars, a terrible scourge that will strip many acres of trees(especially oaks) bare. They have no natural enemies.
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