The cats notice everything new or different and Jybow didn’t waste any time in alerting me of the hundreds of caterpillars she found. Hopalong doesn’t like creepy crawly things, so she stayed a safe distance away...and besides she has seen these before.
Here’s a close-up of the caterpillars and there was also another white, silk-like sac full of these caterpillars high in the small tree. Jimmy quickly set the bags on fire before they got a chance to spread any further, but we’ll keep an eye out for them now that we know they have arrived and check the trees daily. These little fellas come out of their sacs starving and can eat all the leaves from a tree and leave it bare. We’ve never had a tree die due to infestation by these caterpillars, but as we have just begun to see new green leaves make their spring appearance, we sure don’t want to look at a bare leafless tree again…at least not this soon.These caterpillars finally turn into moths and if you want to read more about the Eastern Tent Caterpillar just CLICK HERE.
