🍃 Invasive Spongy Moths🐛 <= my data!
They have a new name: spongy moth! They are officially the Lymantria dispar dispar (LDD) moths. It's the caterpillars that give the most trouble.
The egg masses are throughout the forest. What I have read is that they die in colder winter temperatures, above the snow line. That made me curious. I cannot scrape the 16 acres of the egg masses. I did collect some.
May 8 – Deciding to conduct an experiment, I scraped some eggs off the trees, and brought them up to the house. They did not hatch.
There were some on the spruce tree, though. This was May 12th. You can see the silken threads all around the tree top. I wondered. I'd scraped quite a few egg masses off this tree, and popped them in soapy water.
I noticed the first ones May 15th last year. It was May 16th this year. Thing is, we had a long, hard dump of rain. Then I didn't see anymore.
I'm hoping they have been killed here by the winter cold. This is the 2022 prediction range by the Ontario ministry.
2021
6 comments:
I see front he maps that our area is quite blessed by these overly creatures. 🥸
...the silver lining of a cold winter is that many insects are killed.
I guess referring to them as gypsy moths is no long PC? There was a news story about them on our local news and they are in an upcycle around here. The arborist was showing some kind of tape to ring tree trunks with to cut down on some of the damage but also said the moth population rises and falls in cyclical fashion and the trees mostly survive. I'm sure they have their purpose but I don't like seeing them.
I found one in my bathroom last night. I had folded a load of towels off the line earlier. Hope not to see any more.
We don't need another season of the Puff Moths (we are not "allowed" to call them Gypsy Moths anymore). How lucky are you to have a Scarlet Tangier visit your feeders - such a goregous bird.
I haven't heard of these, but when I google it sounds like they're headed this way.
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